Averbia as a selective naming disorder: a single case report

After a moderate head injury a 33-year-old woman presented a selective defect in finding verbs and name actions. Objects, colors, body parts, and qualities were named in a normal way. No other associated aphasic defects were observed. It was proposed that the selection and use of verbs in their correct forms implies two different aspects, which eventually can become dissociated: (1) the ability to retrieve the lexical item (the action name); and (2) the ability to use the correct affixation, that is, to select the morphological form according to the current context. Only the second would be associated with agrammatism. Defects in the first aspect (selection of the lexical item) would represent a particular form of anomia, a category-specific anomia, or anomia for verbs (averbia). Our patient illustrated this particular type of category-specific naming disorder.