Oral Naming and Oral Reading: Do They Speak the Same Language?

We present evidence from a fluent aphasic subject with intact comprehension but moderate word-finding difficulties. Despite her anomia in picture naming, MOS displayed normal performance in reading aloud, even when tested on lower-frequency words with atypical spelling-to-sound correspondences. We argue that, contrary to some recent interpretations of preserved reading with impaired naming, this pattern does not demonstrate separate task-specific speech lexicons, but rather reflects inherent differences between the processes of naming and reading. In support of this hypothesis, when given appropriate assistance (in this case multi-phonemic cueing), MOS achieved picture naming scores within normal limits.