Phonological/semantic errors in two Spanish-speaking patients with anomic aphasia

Difficulty in finding words is one of the principal characteristics of apha sia. Nevertheless, cognitive neuropsychology models point out that aphasia is not a homogeneous alteration, since it can be caused by different altera tions depending on the component of the naming process that is damaged. Thi s paper presents additional evidence for what has been found in the English language, with two cases of Spanish-speaking patients-RMA and JGG-that ill ustrate two different types of anemia with different altered components. Th e first of these demonstrates a semantic alteration resulting from difficul ties in representation of the meaning of words, leading to semantic errors in the emission of words. The second case, in contrast to the first, demons trates a phonological alteration, caused by a deficit in the representation of the sound of words, and resulting in phonological errors in the naming task. Results are also compatible with theories that propose different cere bral locations for different anemic deficits, considering the alterations i n functional and anatomically differentiated language systems.