What can speech production errors tell us about cross-linguistic processing in bilingual aphasia? Evidence from 4 English/Afrikaans speaking individuals with aphasia.

In an effort to inform clinical practice and our understanding of bilingual aphasia, we examined differential performance in lexical retrieval abilities between first (L1) and second acquired language (L2), types of errors produced, and if performance was influenced by degree of cognate overlap in 4 bilingual aphasic individuals. Methods: A case series analysis of four Afrikaans/English bilingual aphasic individuals whose confrontation naming data were subjected to broad phonetic transcription was employed. Research questions were directed toward between language differences in lexical retrieval abilities, the influence of performance by degree of cognate overlap and types of errors produced. Results: Three participants showed significantly higher whole word confrontation naming accuracy in L1 relative to L2. One participant showed no difference. Performance for everyone was the poorest for low cognate overlap words. The largest proportion of error type for 3 participants in both L1 and L2 was omission. Discussion: These findings show that while all participants had aphasia, their relative naming impairments were consistent with their relative proficiency and use patterns prior to their stroke. The participant without between language differences was equally proficient in both languages and the remaining 3 participants showed an advantage consistent with the language used most frequently