Lexical retrieval deficits in anomic aphasia and specific language impairment (SLI)

Abstract

Lexical retrieval of verbs and nouns was compared in two groups of impaired language users, children diagnosed with SLI and adults with acquired anomic aphasia, on two production tasks: picture confrontation naming and connected speech. Both children with SLI and adults with anomic aphasia showed a more substantial lexical or naming deficit for verbs than for nouns. However, no specific verb retrieval deficit was observed in connected speech in either group. Furthermore, partial correlations between verb and noun naming and their type-token ratios in connected speech failed to find an association between verb/ noun retrieval in naming and in connected speech. The results suggest (1) that children with SLI and adults with anomic aphasia show a specific verb deficit in naming, and (2) that the ability to predict lexical retrieval abilities for verbs (and nouns) in connected speech from naming performance is weak for both groups.