Compound production in agrammatism: Evidence from stroke-induced and Primary Progressive Aphasia

The present multiple case study investigates the production of compound words in three Greek-speaking individuals with agrammatism, as a symptom either of stroke-induced aphasia or Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA). Two off-line tasks were conducted, a picture naming and a production by definition task, using different types of compounds, in order to examine patients' ability to produce complex morphological structures and the impact of specific compound properties. Results showed that all patients' performance was significantly more impaired compared to healthy controls. Qualitative analysis revealed different error patterns for each pathological condition, suggesting that agrammatism in stroke-induced and primary progressive aphasia does not necessarily result in the same deficits when it comes to morphological processing. Moreover, heterogeneous results emerged for the two PPA patients which further highlight the progressive nature of PPA as a crucial factor in complex word retrieval.