Word-reading ability and general intelligence level were shown to be highly correlated in a group of normal adults; from this data a regression equation was obtained. Using this regression equation, IQ levels were predicted from reading scores in a group of dementing patients. The evidence strongly suggested that these predicted IQ levels provided close approximations to the premorbid IQ levels. Furthermore, the evidence implied that reading ability is potentially a better indicator of premorbid level of functioning than vocabulary level. The advantages and limitations of using the regression equation in the detection and evaluation of dementia in the individual patient are considered.

items of graded difficulty which allows for individual differences in naming ability.Evidence of category specificity in the cerebral organisation of language is beginning to emerge from recent studies of language disorders. Selective comprehension deficits and selective naming deficits that are category-specific have now been reported.5-7 In a recent study, McKenna and Warrington8 described a patient whose only intact naming competence was for the proper name class, countries. In the present study two major semantic categories were selected-object names and proper names. The choice of these particular categories was prompted by our previous single case study8 and by the observations of a further patient who had a selective impairment for one class of proper names in an otherwise intact naming vocabulary. We report the neurological and psychological investigations of this patient in Appendix 1.In the present study we describe the construction of two graded naming tests, for object names and proper names respectively. These tests were standardised on a group of 100 normal subjects, and subsequently a group of 46 patients with localised left hemisphere lesions were tested. The aims of our investigations were threefold:(1) To examine the relationship between intelligence and naming ability in a normal population with a view to developing a clinically more useful test.

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