[Verbal and non-verbal aspects of semantic disintegration in aphasia (author's transl)]

After a review of the explanations offered in the literature on the nature of aphasic disintegration, the author suggests that a nuclear impairment of semantic level of language integration may exist in many forms of aphasia. This hypothesis is supported by personal observations on verbal and non-verbal aspects of semantic impairment in aphasia. The incidence of semantic troubles is very high both at the level of verbal production and comprehension and at a non-verbal study of the "areas of meaning". No relationship was found between the incidence of semantic troubles and the ("fluent" or "non-fluent") clinical form of aphasia. A definite relationship exists between production of semantic paraphasias at the expressive level and number of semantic errors obtained as a verbal comprehension task, and between verbal semantic disorders and pathological performances at the non-verbal task of "semantic relationships".