Divergent semantic behavior in aphasia.
The purpose of the present study was to examine the divergent semantic behaviors of 30 persons with aphasia in comparison to these same behaviors in a group of 30 normal individuals. Specifically, this study examined fluency or the number of ideas produced, flexibility or the variety of ideas produced, and communality within each subject group and between the two groups. Results support the existence of the divergent mental operation and indicate that persons with aphasia are impaired in their ability to generate semantic responses under this operation. Therefore, speech pathologists may wish to include divergent tasks in their evaluation procedures and plan therapy directed toward the retrieval of divergent responses.