A comparison of empirically derived groups of aphasic patients on the Neurosensory Center Comprehensive Examination for Aphasia.

Rating scales were used to identify characteristic aphasic phenomena in a sample of natural language from aphasic patients. These variables were used to derive empirically four groups of aphasic patients. These groups showed significant multivariate differences on the basis of their performance on the Neurosensory Center Comprehensive Examination for Aphasia. Seven subtests showed significant univariate differences among the four groups: Visual Naming, Description of Use, Sentence Repetition, Repetition of Digits, Reversal of Digits, Identification by Sentence, and Oral Reading Sentences. Two of the groups reflected Howes dichotomy of articulate-nonarticulate language disorders. Another group was thought to reflect Schuell's single dimension of language disorders that could be differentiated only in terms of severity. Afourth group was characterized by a major impairment of memory. These results indicated that aphasic phenomena could be identified reliably on the basis of rating of verbal output on scales that reflect language disorders. These scales were used in a statistical fashion to derive empirically oriented groups that were identified on the basis of psychometric measures of language skills.