Confrontation Naming in Individuals With Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: A Quantitative Analysis of Paraphasic Error Subtypes

Although confrontation naming deficits have been observed in dominant temporal lobe epilepsy (DTLE), the relative contribution of impoverished phonologic word retrieval and/or semantic knowledge remains unclear. Analysis of verbal-semantic, phonemic-literal, and combination paraphasias produced during confrontation naming by participants with seizure disorders (52 DTLE; 47 nondominant temporal lobe epilepsy [NDTLE]; 54 psychogenic nonepileptic seizures [PNES]) indicated that the frequency of: (a) verbal-semantic paraphasias was similar across groups, (b) phonemic-literal paraphasias was highest in DTLE, and (c) combination paraphasias was lowest in PNES. Confrontation naming ability was most strongly related to phonemic-literal paraphasia frequency in DTLE and to verbal IQ in both NDTLE and PNES. Greater confrontation naming deficits in DTLE may be attributed to impairments in phonological processing.