Affiliations: Speech and Language Pathologist, Department of
Clinical Intervention and Technique, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm,
Sweden | Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm,
Sweden | Department of Neuroscience/ Speech and Language
Pathology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Note: [] Corresponding author: Barbara Zetterqvist, Logopedmottagningen,
Astrid Lindgren Children's Hospital, 171 76 Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail:
barbara.zetterqvist@karolinska.se
Abstract: Objective: The purpose of this study was to focus on two linguistic
abilities, word retrieval (expressive language) and comprehension of vocabulary
and grammar (receptive language), as well as to investigate to what extent
long-term problems exist in these areas in children following traumatic brain
injury. Methods: Two groups of children were studied retrospectively:
twenty-four children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and twenty-one children
diagnosed with brain tumour. All children had been referred to the
rehabilitation team for assessment. The children were between four and
seventeen years old when assessed, with the assessments performed at least one
year after the injury or brain tumour diagnosis. An established set of tests
regarding word retrieval and comprehension of vocabulary and grammar was used,
and the results were compared with normative test data. Results: In both clinical groups, significantly more children scored
lower than the designated "normal" score than in the normative sample on tests
measuring confrontation naming and phonological word retrieval. In addition, in
the brain tumour group, more children demonstrated significantly lower results
than normal performance on a test for semantic word retrieval. In the TBI
group, significantly more children scored below the normal value on tests of
word and grammatical comprehension when compared to the normative sample. Conclusions: This study confirms that word retrieval is an area of
deficit in many children with acquired brain injuries one year or more after
the injury occurred. The study also indicates that children with TBI may have
persistent deficits in comprehension of both vocabulary and grammar.
Keywords: Traumatic brain injury, acquired brain injury, brain tumour, word retrieval, language comprehension, language disorders
