Question

Identify the type of 'linguistic deficit' that the patient displays in the interaction shown below: Doctor: "Can you tell me about this picture? What is there or what is happening?"
Patient: "I can't say what… I know what it is… But I don't know where it is and I don't know what it is under. This one here, I can't say and that one, also."

• A. Anomia
• B. Agrammatism
• C. Auditory aphasia
• D. Asphyxia

Hint:

Anomia = word-finding difficulty. Patients often say "I know it, but I can't say it." This is different from agrammatism (grammar errors) or auditory aphasia (understanding problems).

Answer 1

The Correct Option is A

Step 1: Understanding the patient's response
The patient knows what the object is, recognizes it visually, but struggles to retrieve or produce the correct word for it. The repeated statements like "I can't say what…" and "I know what it is… but I don't know where it is" show word-finding difficulty rather than lack of comprehension. Step 2: Analyzing the options
- (A) \emph{Anomia}: A type of aphasia characterized by difficulty in retrieving words, especially naming objects. Patients often use circumlocutions ("talking around" the missing word). This matches the patient's description perfectly.
- (B) \emph{Agrammatism}: Refers to omission of grammatical elements (e.g., "want food" instead of "I want food"). The patient's speech here is not missing grammar but rather specific words, so this is not correct.
- (C) \emph{Auditory aphasia}: Involves impaired comprehension of spoken language, not word-finding difficulty. The patient understands the question, so this is not correct.
- (D) \emph{Asphyxia}: Refers to lack of oxygen, a medical condition, not a linguistic disorder. Clearly irrelevant here.
Step 3: Conclusion
The patient shows difficulty in naming objects despite recognition, which is a hallmark of \emph{anomia}. \[ \boxed{\text{Correct Answer: (A)}} \]