Patterns of naming objects and actions in children with word finding difficulties

Abstract

Children who experience difficulties in naming are described as having word finding difficulties (WFDs). In the present study 31 children with WFDs were identified through a wider survey of educational provision for those with language and communication difficulties. The children were included if they were between 6;4-7;10 years, had normal non-verbal intelligence, no major articulation difficulties, and had WFDs as diagnosed by the Test of Word Finding Difficulties. Three control groups were identified who were matched on: chronological age (N = 31), naming age (N = 31), and level of receptive grammar (N = 31). Children's comprehension of words, accuracy of naming, and latency to name were assessed for numerals, letters, and pictures of objects and actions. Half the pictures presented were high frequency items and half were low frequency items. The children with WFDs formed a heterogeneous group with respect to other language measures with the primary defining feature being their poor performance in word retrieval and their poor performance on a semantic fluency test. No differences were found between the children with WFDs and their age-matched peers when naming letters and numerals or in the comprehension of objects and actions. In contrast, the accuracy and latency of naming were significantly worse than that of age-matched peers. Accuracy of naming was equivalent to that of the language-matched peers and error patterns also were similar. However, the children with WFDs were the slowest to provide responses and for naming high frequency objects this difference approached significance in comparison to language-matched peers (p = .052). The findings point to the importance of using appropriate control groups, and are discussed in relation to the idea that WFDs are caused by impoverished semantic representations.