WORD-FINDING IN THE CONVERSATIONAL DISCOURSE OF CHILDREN WITH CLOSED-HEAD INJURY

Despite the fact that dysnomia or word-finding difficulty is consisten tly documented as a characteristic feature of the language sequelae of childhood closed head injury (CHI), few studies have examined the eff ects of such word-finding problems on language performance outside the constraints of a standard confrontation naming test. The present stud y examined evidence for word-finding difficulties in both confrontatio n naming and conversation in a group of 11 children (aged 9-17) who ha d experienced a severe CHI. Performance of the children with CHI was c ompared to that of a control group individually matched for age, gende r and handedness. The children with CHI demonstrated inferior performa nce on the test of confrontation naming. In addition, the children wit h CHI were found to have a conversational error profile that was diffe rent from the control group. These findings are discussed with respect to the relationship between standard test performance and communicati ve competence in the conversational discourse setting.