Are brief batteries able to identify aphasia in elderly people? A study with the ABLA Battery

Pagliarin, Karina Carlesso; Rocha, Pâmela Lemes; Costa, Julia Prado Caieiro da; Ortiz, Karin Zazo

doi:10.1590/2317-1782/e20250081en

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Original Article • CoDAS 38 (2) • 2026 • https://doi.org/10.1590/2317-1782/e20250081en linkcopy

Are brief batteries able to identify aphasia in elderly people? A study with the ABLA Battery

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Purpose This study aimed to evaluate the performance of healthy elderly individuals and elderly individuals with post-stroke aphasia using the ABLA Battery - Brief Assessment of Language and Aphasias in order to verify if this brief battery is able to identify and characterize linguistic deficits in elderly individuals as well as to assess the effectiveness of this tool as a screening for aphasia.

Methods Sixteen neurologically healthy elderly individuals (Control Group- CG) and sixteen elderly persons with aphasia (Clinical Group EPWA) were assessed using the ABLA Battery. Data analysis was conducted using the Mann-Whitney U Test to compare performance on linguistic tasks between the two groups.

Results The Clinical Group scored significantly lower on all tasks of the ABLA Battery compared to the Control Group, with statistically significant differences (p<0.05).

Conclusion Aphasia negatively impacts the linguistic abilities of older adults, and the ABLA Battery was shown to be effective in promptly identifying these early changes.

Keywords:
Aphasia; Aging; Language; Evaluation; Stroke

Task/ maximum score	Group	N	Mean	Standard deviation	p-value
Directed Interview/18	Clinic	16	13.19	5.89	0.002
Directed Interview/18	Control	16	17.75	1.00	0.002
Oral Comprehension/11	Clinic	16	6.00	3.81	≤ 0.001
Oral Comprehension/11	Control	16	9.38	1.50	≤ 0.001
Written Comprehension/11	Clinic	16	4.50	4.24	≤ 0.001
Written Comprehension/11	Control	16	9.25	2.20	≤ 0.001
Copy/4	Clinic	16	1.56	1.75	≤ 0,001
Copy/4	Control	16	3.69	1.01	≤ 0,001
Dictation/7	Clinic	16	1.75	2.67	≤ 0.001
Dictation/7	Control	16	4.88	2.06	≤ 0.001
Repetition/12	Clinic	16	7.25	5.33	0.004
Repetition/12	Control	16	11.63	1.02	0.004
Reading Aloud/12	Clinic	16	5.44	5.08	≤ 0.001
Reading Aloud/12	Control	16	11.69	0.60	≤ 0.001
Oral Naming/24	Clinic	16	11.81	10.25	≤ 0.001
Oral Naming/24	Control	16	22.38	2.21	≤ 0.001
Automatic speech (form)/4	Clinic	16	2.13	1.58	≤ 0.001
Automatic speech (form)/4	Control	16	3.94	0.25	≤ 0.001
Automatic speech (content)/4	Clinic	16	2.44	1.67	0.002
Automatic speech (content)/4	Control	16	4.00	0.00	0.002
Non-Verbal Praxis/24	Clinic	16	17.25	7.27	0.002
Non-Verbal Praxis/24	Control	16	23.38	1.25	0.002

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