Profiling word retrieval abilities in persons with aphasia - A preliminary study

Abstract

Various methods are used to elicit the naming responses. The current study aimed to assess different naming abilities in persons with aphasia. Naming abilities were assessed using varied types of naming tasks for PWA. PWA was subjected to eight types of naming tasks [Confrontation Naming (CN), Phonemic Fluency (PF), Semantic Fluency (SF), Serial Naming (SN), Ordinate Naming (ON), Automated Naming (AN), Responsive Naming (RN) and Sentence Completion (SC)] and compared with age, education matched neurotypical individuals (n=15). The assessment was carried out in the Kannada Language. The raw scores obtained for each task were tabulated and subjected to statistical analysis. On eight naming tasks, neurotypical individuals performed better than persons with post-stroke aphasia. Mann Whitney U test revealed a significant difference in the phonemic fluency task in both groups of participants with a value less than 0.05. Friedman analysis with adjusted Bonferroni showed a significant difference in pairwise comparison for eight naming tasks. Among which pairs with phonemic fluency task had a significant difference in both the groups (p< 0.05). The correlation between language impairment in PWA and types of naming was studied using WAB AQ scores with accuracy scores on different types of naming tasks. A significant correlation was seen between WAB AQ and the Phonemic fluency task. The nature of the task and the factors affecting the naming of each task influence the performance of the individuals. PWA has a difference in brain mechanism for naming compared to NTI. Phonemic fluency is recommended for regular naming assessments as it is simple, easy, and quick to administer. Also, it taps both the cognitive and linguistic abilities of an individual. Language impairment and different types of naming are well related in the current study. The need to assess all types of naming to understand the word production deficit is justified.