A note on patterns of comprehension and recovery in global aphasia

Abstract

Two tests of auditory comprehension (one probing knowledge of geographical locations, the other probing knowledge of familiar objects) were administered on two occasions to global aphasic patients. In addition to words drawn from the relevant lexical domains, nonsense words and words from inappropriate syntactic categories also were presented to the patients. The aphasic subjects attained more success rejecting nonsense words and words drawn from inappropriate syntactic categories than in comprehending the target words; in addition there was a consistent and surprising superiority in making correct localizations on a map as contrasted to localizing correctly familiar objects in a room. Similarly, patients' improvement across administrations was more pronounced in their heightened ability to reject the inappropriate terms rather than in increased capacity to make more accurate localizations of the target words. Overall, improvement was modest and virtually equivalent on the two measures of auditory comprehension.