Dysnomia following traumatic brain injury: an information-processing approach to assessment

Current cognitive neuropsychological models of language have contributed to a greater understanding of the language processing components involved in the simple task of picture naming. The naming abilities of a group of 20 patients who had sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) were assessed with the purpose of more accurately describing the precise processing mechanisms underlying the dysnomia. Performance of the TBI group on the Boston Naming Test was analysed for error pattern and compared to a group of controls (n = 20) matched for age, sex and years of education. TBI subjects performed significantly poorer than controls, despite an unexpectedly high rate of naming 'error' in controls. TBI and control subjects showed marked similarity in overall error pattern. The results of a more comprehensive language-processing assessment is reported for a subgroup of six clearly dysnomic TBI subjects. Conclusions are drawn regarding the possible functional locus of the naming impairment in each case, and the contribution of current cognitive neuropsychological studies in anomia rehabilitation is discussed.