Subtle language deficits in WAB-recovered patients at 12 months after left-hemisphere stroke
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Background
The Western Aphasia Battery-Revised (WAB-R) Aphasia Quotient is the most widely used standardized post-stroke aphasia measure; its conventional 93.8 cutoff has limited sensitivity to mild residual impairment. Beyond the cutoff, it offers limited objective discourse assessment, no action-naming assessment, and naming tests limited to very common objects.
Aims
We sought short tests capturing subtle aphasia in patients recovered above the WAB-R threshold, then its demographic and lesion correlates.
Methods & Procedures
Sixty-seven patients with acute left-hemisphere ischemic stroke completed acute structural MRI and a 12-month language battery comprising the WAB-R, Boston Naming Test (BNT), Hopkins Action Naming Assessment (HANA), and Modern Cookie Theft (MCT) picture description. Hierarchical logistic (binary deficit) and linear (control-referenced composite z-score) regressions evaluated acute aphasia history, sex, education, age, acute depression (PHQ-9), and residualized regional lesion load.
Outcomes & Results
Of 67 participants, 45 (67%) recovered above the WAB-R threshold. Of these, 18 (40%) had residual deficits on at least one supplemental test (“subtle aphasia”). BNT plus MCT content-unit count captured all 18 (100%); HANA added none beyond these two. The binary model discriminated deficit from no-deficit at AUC = 0.80 (95% CI [0.70, 1.00]); higher education significantly lowered deficit odds (OR = 0.80/year, 95% CI [0.64, 1.00], p = .049). On the continuous composite, acute PHQ-9 independently predicted 12-month outcome (β = −0.13 per point, 95% CI [−0.22, −0.04], p = .006, cumulative R² = 0.38). Applying the Senthilkumar et al. (2026) stricter cutoff (WAB-AQ ≥ 96.7) reclassified 12 of 45 (27%) out of recovery, capturing 8 of 18 (44%) subtle-aphasia patients. Composite residualized lesion load did not differentiate the groups when adjusted.
Conclusions
Above the WAB-R recovery threshold, subtle aphasia is present on the BNT or MCT in ∼40%, with higher education associated with lower odds at 12 months; acute depression emerged as a candidate correlate but did not survive removal of a single high-influence observation, warranting replication in larger samples. Regional lesion variables informative at greater stroke severity contribute little as large lesions cluster in the persistently aphasic group, reducing lesion variance within the recovered subgroup and its discrimination of subtle deficits. This adds to evidence that clinicians should not infer complete language recovery from the WAB-AQ alone, and that identifying residual deficits may require greater investment in behavioral assessment and consideration of alternative WAB-AQ cutoffs. Structural anatomical information, by contrast, appears to add little discriminative value at the upper performance range.
