Background: The ability to generate words that follow certain constraints, or verbal fluency, is a sensitive indicator of neurocognitive impairment, and is impacted by a variety of variables. Aims: To investigate the effect of post-stroke aphasia, elicitation category and linguistic variables on verbal fluency performance. Methods &…

This paper investigates the cognitive processes underlying picture naming and auditory word repetition. In the two-step model of lexical access, both the semantic and phonological steps are involved in naming, but the former has no role in repetition. Assuming recognition of the to-be-repeated word, repetition could consist of retrieving the…

Literature suggests that illiterate subjects are unaware of the phonological structure of language. This fact may influence the characteristics of aphasic speech, namely the structure of paraphasias. A battery of tests was developed for this study to be used with aphasic subjects (literate and illiterate), in order to explore this topic in more…

This article contrasts aphasic patients' performance of word naming and lexical decision with that of intact college-aged readers. We discuss this contrast within a framework of self-organization; word recognition by aphasic patients is destabilized relative to intact performance. Less stable performance shows itself as an increase in the…

Compares language patterns in two moderately aphasic adults over age 60 with left hemisphere damage, using measures of lexical richness (word frequency). Argues for the usefulness of evaluating patients on conversational speech and the role of extensive linguistic analysis in prognosis and therapy. The discussion considers both qualitative and…