Sound recognition in relation to aural language comprehension in aphasic patients.

This study was undertaken to determine whether some aphasic defects in aural language comprehension might be a reflection of cognitive impairment which also affects the recognition of meaningful, non-verbal sounds. Defects in sound recognition were consistently associated with aural comprehension defects of at least comparable severity and the majority of aphasics with impaired aural comprehension failed sound recognition. Although some aphasics with impaired aural comprehension performed normally in sound recognition, their language comprehension impairments were not of lesser severity than those shown by aphasics failing sound recognition. The relationship between sound recognition and reading comprehension was different in nature from that between sound recognition and aural comprehension.