Some Dimensions of Auditory Language Comprehension in Aphasia

Abstract

Four aspects of auditory comprehension were compared in 44 normal children ages 4 to 9, in 12 normal adults, and in 52 aphasics of 5 diagnostic classes: Broca’s, Wernicke’s, conduction, anomic, and global aphasics. The 4 aspects studied were breadth of vocabulary, auditory sequential pointing-span, comprehension of directional prepositions, and recognition of correct grammatical usage of prepositions. The aphasics' patterns of success were all different from those of the children, and the diagnostic subgroups could be distinguished from each other by a discriminant analysis. The mean pointing-span of the best aphasic group (anomics) was below the level of 6-year-olds. Broca’s aphasics had by far the poorest score. It is concluded that auditory comprehension is multidimensional, and that its pattern of disturbance is characteristic for different aphasic subgroups.