Auditory recognition of brand name nouns in patients with aphasia

Preservation of recognition of proper nouns, such as famous names and geographic places, has been found in patients with comprehension impairment due to aphasia. This study compares recognition of brand name nouns with their common noun counterparts in persons with aphasia displaying mild, moderate, or severe comprehension deficits. Comprehension of other proper nouns including famous names and geographic place names was also tested and compared to the results of the brand name subtest. Results from 10 subjects indicate similar scores on recognition of common and brand name nouns despite the hypothesis that brand name nouns would show better preservation. Other results indicated highest proper noun preservation of famous names, and lowest preservation of geographic place names. Results also show significantly higher performance on all study measures compared to performance on standardized subtests, confirming the relative preservation of comprehension of proper nouns in patients with aphasia.