Left temporal lobe brain damage pattern on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale.

This study supports an association of left temporal brain damage with the unusual WAIS subtest pattern of more impaired Information and Vocabulary than Similarities scores. Temporal lesions may impair well-learned verbal memory more than reasoning skills. Thirty-six patients with localized left hemisphere brain damage in the frontal, parietal or occipital, and temporal lobe were compared using an index in which Information and Vocabulary were contrasted to Similiarities. Index scores were adjusted for age. Seventy-five percent of the temporal patients had negative index scores, and 75% of the frontal patients had positive index scores. Temporal patients tended to score more negatively on the index than did frontal patients, p less than .05.