Influence of written form on reading comprehension in aphasia

Reading comprehension of 20 aphasic patients was systematically assessed using equivalent stimuli written in both print and cursive form. A Single-Word-to-Picture Matching task and a Sentence-to-Picture Matching task were employed. Performances of the aphasics were not uniformly facilitated by one written form over the other. Furthermore, the reading comprehension of the majority of individual patients was not influenced by written form. Four of the subjects, however, did appear to display real performance discrepancies when reading cursive versus print, particularly on the Sentence-to-Picture Matching task. Two of these patients performed better when reading cursive, while two performed better when reading print. Reevaluation of two of these patients 6 mo after initial testing revealed that they continued to display the same performance patterns originally demonstrated. Clinical implications of these results for the evaluation and treatment of reading comprehension in aphasia are discussed.