Naming performance in two bilinguals with frontal vs. temporal glioma.

Two bilingual patients had World Health Organization Grade II Gliomas removed from a language area, one in the left mesiofronto-cingular region and one in the left postero-temporal region. They performed a picture naming task in their two languages before their surgery and afterwards. Both patients showed slowness in naming in their first language but different patterns of naming performance across their first and second language. Their patterns depended upon the site of their lesion and their language experience. These data, from brain-damaged, bilingual adult patients, contribute to the neuropsychological literature on brain organization and plasticity, and highlight the importance of assessing naming speed to obtain a better understanding of impairment and recovery mechanisms.