43 Semantic Comprehension Defcits in Hindi Speaking Persons with Aphasia: A Preliminary Report Santosh Kumar & S. P. Goswami All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Manasagangothri, Mysore Abstract The study was carried out with the aim of to develop a protocol of semantic comprehension in Hindi language. The objective of the study was to conduct a relative study between neuro-typical adults and persons with aphasia with respect to auditory, picture, and orthographic modes. The present study was done in two phases. First phase included development of protocol material and in the second phase, the protocol battery was administered on neuro-typical adults and persons with aphasia. The developed material consisted of seven sections viz. noun, polar questions, semantic anomaly, syntagmatic relations, paradigmatic relations, semantic contiguity, and semantic similarity. Further, noun section of the semantic protocol was categorized into fve sub-sections like body parts, common objects, colors, geometric forms, and numbers. Each sections and/or sub-sections consisted of 10 items in auditory, picture, and orthographic mode. The material was administered on 56 neuro-typical adults and 11 persons with aphasia aged 18 to 65 years. It was observed that there was a signifcant difference between the mean scores across the neuro-typical adults and persons with aphasia on the entire task in all the modalities. Based on this fnding it is recommended that the developed protocol can be used for assessment of semantic comprehension for persons with aphasia. Key words: Modality, Hindi, Semantics, Neuro-typical Aphasia refers to loss of language following an insult to the anatomical basis of language areas in the brain (Goodglass & Kaplan, 1972). There have been several defnitions given by various scholars based on their background. But almost all agree that it is an acquired neurogenic condition “Aphasia refers to the disturbance of any or all of the skills, associations and habits of spoken and written language produced by injury to certain brain areas that are specialized for these functions. “ (Goodglass & Kaplan, 2001; p.5). Causes of brain attack vary from cerebral vascular accidents (stroke), tumor, penetrating wounds, and other diseases. Stroke is the most common cause of aphasia (Tonkonogy, 1986). Aphasia may affect all modes of expressive and receptive communication including speaking, reading, writing, understanding and gesturing. The extent to which each of these is affected depends on the location in the brain where the stroke has occurred (Longerich & Bordeaux, 1954). Aphasia may impair the ability to select words to express one’s thoughts and also impair the recognition of words for the comprehension of phrases and paragraphs. If comprehension is affected, reading and listening will also be impaired on the same level (Musso, Weiller, Kiebel, Muller, Bulau, & Rijntjes, 1999). Comprehension may be compromised while reading sentences and texts which have semantic and morphological alterations of the spoken words (Radanovic, Senaha, & Mansur, 2001). The semantic system is thought to be central to all aspects of language and is involved in the comprehension and production, either spoken or written (Patterson & Shewell, 1987). Hart and Gordon (1990), who found a selective disorder in ‘receptive’ semantics in three cases, suggested that the semantic mechanisms for comprehension and production are separable. A “vertical” fractionation of semantic processing in input and output was also postulated by Raymer and Rothi (2000), along with the “horizontal” fractionation that is indicated by category- and modality-specifc defcits. Several researchers have studied comprehension at semantic level in persons with aphasia. Stachowiak, Huber, Poeck, and Klerschensteiner (1977) compared semantic comprehension among persons with aphasia, persons with non-aphasia and neuro-typical adults. The test material consisted of 26 stories. Each story was an everyday event or situation. The story was read to the participants. They were required to choose the picture from a multiple choice set of fve, which was appropriate to the story. Out of fve pictures, one picture depicted the literal sense of a metaphorical comment and the other pictures misrepresented semantic functions expressed in the text. The persons with aphasia and control group gave the same pattern of response. It was concluded that persons with aphasia experienced diffculties in comprehending isolated words and sentences due to the redundancy of the text. Pierce, Jarecki, and Cannito (1990) studied eleven Semantic Comprehension Defcits JISHA 26 (1), 43-61 Semantic Comprehension Defcits Semantic Comprehension Defcits Semantic Comprehension Defcits