Some aspects of phonological impairment in aphasia*1

The view is put forth that in some patients only phoneme encoding or decoding is disturbed, whereas in others a central level of phoneme processing is impaired, and that, besides sequential phonological analysis, other processes operate in auditory comprehension.

Abstract

The relationships between expressive and receptive phonemic disorders and between disturbances of phoneme processing and general disorders of auditory comprehension were studied in 69 aphasic patients, by means of a phoneme discrimination test and of a standard aphasia battery. A significant but incomplete correlation between disorders of phonemic output and of phoneme analysis was found. The view is put forth that in some patients only phoneme encoding or decoding is disturbed, whereas in others a central level of phoneme processing is impaired. A significant but partial correlation was also found between disorders of phonological analysis and general disorders of auditory comprehension. This supports the view that, besides sequential phonological analysis, other processes operate in auditory comprehension.