Effect of Exemplar Typicality on Naming Deficits in Aphasia

The effect of typicality of category exemplars on naming performance was investigated using a single subject experimental design across participants and behaviors in four patients with fluent aphasia. Participants received a semantic feature treatment to improve naming of either typical or atypical examples, while generalization was tested on the untrained examples of the category. The order of typicality and category trained was counterbalanced across the participants. Results indicated that patients trained on naming of atypical examples demonstrated generalization to naming of intermediate and typical examples. Patients trained on typical examples demonstrated no generalization to naming of intermediate or atypical examples. Implications for models of typicality and rehabilitation of aphasia are discussed.