A comparison of language deficits in learning-disabled, head-injured, and nondisabled young adults: results from an abbreviated Aphasia Screening Test.

This study used an Aphasia Screening Test (AST) abbreviated to its naming, pronunciation, and sentence interpretation items to compare groups of 60 learning-disabled (LD), 30 head-injured (HI), and 30 nondisabled (ND) young adults matched for FISQ and balanced for gender composition. The LD and HI, who did not differ, made significantly more AST errors than the ND. One-quarter to one-third of the LD and HI subjects exhibited language deficits. For the clinical groups only, AST errors, particularly pronunciation errors, were related negatively to WRAT reading and spelling scores. The Reitan and Wolfson (1988) severity ratings for AST items did not improve group discrimination.