Impairment at the semantic level is often presumed in the assessment and treatment of naming difficulties in aphasia. However, the effect of the semantic impairment on naming is not clear. In order to study the relationship between semantic impairment and naming behavior, 18 aphasic subjects were asked to perform a confrontation naming task and a semantic judgment task about the named items. The semantic judgment score exhibited a positive correlation with the naming scores, and a negative correlation with the number of no-responses. Subsequently, the aphasic subjects were divided into two subgroups according to semantic judgment score. The scores of the severe group showed a positive correlation with the naming scores. The scores of the mild group demonstrated a negative correlation with the number of semantic paraphasias without error awareness. These results indicate that the effect of semantic impairment on naming differs according to the degree of semantic impairment. The finding also suggest that severe semantic impairment might tend to cause a no-response, whereas mild semantic impairment might tend to produce semantic paraphasia without error awareness. Also, semantic paraphasia with error awareness did not seem to have a significant relationship with semantic impairment, and item-to-item correspondence between failure of semantic judgment and naming was not found. The findings are discussed in terms of clinical and theoretical considerations.

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    We evaluated the influence of aphasia on performance intelligence tests. The subjects were 22 patients with fluent aphasia not accompanied by motor disturbance such as paralysis or ataxia (19 with Wernicke's aphasia, 2 with conduction aphasia, and 1 with amnesic aphasia) . As intelligence tests, the Standard Language Test of Aphasia (SLTA) , performance test of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) , and Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices (RCPM) were used. The WAIS-R performance test could be classified into subtests : those readily affected and those negligibly affected by aphasia. The subtests that tended to be affected by aphasia were “Picture Arrangement” and “Digit Symbol.” The decrease in scores on the “Picture Arrangement” test appeared to be associated with language expression ability at the speaking level, while that in the scores on the “Digit Symbol” test was thought to be associated with impaired phoneme processing of written language. In the RCPM, items that require inference/thinking ability tended to be affected by speech function and also by the degree of aphasia. Consideration should be given to these subtests and items when the results of WAIS-R and RCPM performance tests are interpreted.

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