What type of aphasia is known for the loss of naming ability?

Anomic aphasia is characterized primarily by a person's difficulty in naming objects, which is known as anomia. Individuals with this type of aphasia often understand language well and can speak fluently, but they struggle to retrieve the words they need, leading to pauses and circumlocutions as they attempt to describe what they want to say instead of being able to directly name it. This specific naming deficit distinguishes anomic aphasia from other types.

In contrast, Broca's aphasia involves challenges with speech production and sentence formation, often leaving individuals with halting and effortful speech, but they usually are able to name objects when they are able to express themselves. Wernicke's aphasia is marked by fluent speech that may lack meaningful content; individuals may produce nonsensical words or phrases, but they do not usually have specific naming difficulties as stands out in anomic aphasia. Mixed aphasia describes a combination of deficits, which might involve naming issues but does not pinpoint naming ability as the primary challenge as found in anomic aphasia. Thus, anomic aphasia is distinctly identified by its core symptom of naming difficulties.