Differential recovery from impairment to the phonological lexicon

Word production was examined in four aphasics diagnosed acutely with neologistic jargon and who displayed impairment to the lexical stage of phonological production (Kohn & Smith, 1993, 1994a). To investigate the major source of their nonword errors (i.e., neologisms, phonemic paraphasias), single word production was tested at three different times over the first 6 months postonset, with one subject receiving additional testing at 14 months postonset. Two subjects showed signs of recovery to the phonological output system with respect to: (1) improved word production scores, (2) increased frequency of phonemic paraphasias versus neologisms, and (3) increased production of target phonemes. These subjects also displayed above-chance production of target phonemes and no significant tendency to perseverate phonemes across picture-naming trials. It was argued that this pattern reflects a resolving disturbance in retrieving entries from the phonological lexicon. The other two subjects showed no improvement in word production. They also consistently produced target phonemes at chance levels and had a tendency to perseverate phonemes across picture-naming trials. This static pattern of performance was considered to reflect loss of information from the phonological lexicon. The neuroanatomical damage sustained by each case was consistent with these two recovery patterns.