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Abstract
Few assessment tools are available to evaluate the integrity of semantic processing in persons with aphasia. Because augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems for persons with aphasia often use semantically organized selection sets, a procedure is needed for evaluating the integrity of semantic organization. Hence, the purpose of Experiment 1 was to develop and validate a paired-comparison procedure to assess semantic organization. The authors administered the task to 50 young adults (19–40 years of age) and 53 old adults (60–86 years of age) and evaluated participants' performance using the norm conformity index (NCI)—a statistic that allows comparison between an individual's performance pattern and that of a comparison group. In Experiment 2, the semantic assessment task was administered to nine adults with aphasia. All of the participants with aphasia successfully completed the task and obtained NCI scores distributed across the severity range. NCI values from the combined young and old participant groups provided a basis for evaluating the integrity of semantic organization of the individuals with aphasia.