Mild traumatic brain injury: Effects on naming in word retrieval and discourse

Primary objective: To investigate differences between a group with mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) and a control group relative to standard scores and error type during word retrieval in both naming and discourse tasks. Methods and procedures: Ten participants with MTBI were age-, gender- and education-matched with 10 participants without injury. Pre-experimental tasks for the participants with MTBI included the Scales of Cognitive Ability for Traumatic Brain Injury and the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices and both groups received the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III. Experimental tasks included the Test of Adolescent/ Adult Word Finding and the Test of Word Finding in Discourse. Main outcomes and results: Few participants (three on each experimental task) demonstrated psychometrically-based word retrieval deficits (standard score < 85); however, a significant difference in performance for the TAWF as compared to the TWFD was observed between groups. More word finding errors occurred with confrontational naming than with discourse tasks for both groups, with latency as the primary error type. Conclusions: Confrontational naming tasks may be more sensitive to subtle language difficulties occurring after MTBI. The study of adults with MTBI and their performance on semantically-based tasks offers important information for the advancement of therapeutic intervention and education.