Word Association in Aphasia: Differences among types of aphasia

Abstract

    The purpose of this study was to explore the structure of semantic fields in aphasic patients using word association. Three word association tests, including free word association, controlled association and a similarity judgment task, were administered to 90 chronic aphasic patients (30 anomic, 30 Broca's and 30 Wernicke's) and 20 normal controls. The differences among the three aphasic groups were analyzed. The results were as follows :
    1) The anomic aphasic patients scored well in free word association and controlled association. They showed more syntagmatic associations than the other two aphasic groups.
   2) The Broca's aphasic patients demonstrated a pattern of responses similar to that of the normal controls, although they made fewer popular responses than the anomic aphasic patients.
   3) The Wernicke's aphasic group made significantly fewer popular responses than the controls. These findings suggest differences in word relationships among the three aphasic groups.