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Changing patterns of childhood aphasia
Author(s) -
Woods Bryan T.,
Teuber HansLukas
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
annals of neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.764
H-Index - 296
eISSN - 1531-8249
pISSN - 0364-5134
DOI - 10.1002/ana.410030315
Subject(s) - aphasia , lateralization of brain function , lesion , audiology , psychology , jargon , right hemisphere , aphasiology , medicine , neuroscience , psychiatry , linguistics , philosophy
Acquired aphasia in children has been generally characterized as nonfluent, transient, and frequently due to right hemisphere lesions. We studied 65 children with unilateral hemispheric brain lesions occurring after speech acquisition any time from the second through the fourteenth year. Of 34 patients with a left hemisphere lesion, 25 had an initial aphasic speech disturbance, while of 31 patients with a right hemisphere lesion, only 4 (including 2 lefthanders) showed any initial aphasia. All those who became aphasic before the age of 8 years eventually regained speech, but recovery time required ranged from less than a month to more than two years. One 5‐year‐old boy who recovered had initial jargon aphasia. Our review of the literature indicated that the conflict between our results and the traditional claim of frequent aphasia with right hemisphere lesions was only apparent; the great majority of crossed aphasias are concentrated in reports written before antibiotics were used, and many cases were associated with systemic bacterial infections.