Action and object naming versus verb and noun retrieval in connected speech: comparisons in late bilingual Greek–English anomic speakers

Abstract

Background: Recently, verb–noun processing differences were reported in a group of late bilingual speakers with fluent, anomic aphasia in Greek (L1) as well as in English (L2) (Kambanaros & van Steenbrugge, 2006). The findings revealed that verb production was significantly more impaired than noun production in both languages during picture naming despite preserved comprehension of action and object names. Aims: The aim of this study is to investigate the total number (quantity) and the diversity (quality or different types) of verbs and nouns produced in conversational speech by the same group of bilingual anomic individuals with aphasia and compare the results to (i) those of the non-brain-injured control group and (ii) their action and object naming performances at the single word level, to determine if grammatical class impairments are also evident in spontaneous speech. Methods & Procedures: In order to examine the distribution and diversity of verbs and nouns in spontaneous speech, speech samples of 300 words were collected from the bilingual individuals with fluent aphasia and their controls in L1 and in L2 on two separate occasions, 1 week apart. In addition, two subtests from the Greek Object and Action Test (GOAT: Kambanaros, 2003), the object and action naming subtests, were presented on two separate occasions, 1 week apart, to both groups of bilingual participants in L1 and L2 (cf. Kambanaros & van Steenbrugge, 2006). Outcomes & Results: Late bilingual participants with anomia showed no difficulties retrieving verbs in spontaneous speech in L1 or L2 despite a significant verb deficit in both languages on action naming tasks. However the bilingual group had significant difficulties in relation to noun production in spontaneous speech in L1 and L2. Conclusions: Picture naming remains the standard of word retrieval ability in aphasia. However, object and action naming scores can underestimate and/or overestimate word retrieval performance for nouns and verbs in connected speech.