Foreign Accent Syndrome following a catastrophic second injury: MRI correlates, linguistic and voice pattern analyses

A case study of Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) is presented with discussion of anatomical localization of injury and comparisons of pre- and postinjury linguistic, phonetic, and acoustic speech characteristics. Because the patient's injury and symptoms were unrelated to previously injured left frontal cortex, and in light of another case history (Moonis et al., 1996), we suggest that FAS has a primary subcortical involvement. We also show that this case is accompanied by a deficit in linguistic, but not affective, prosodic expression. We agree that the "foreign" quality of the FAS speech is a perceptual impression of the listener and not inherent in the patient's vocalization. Finally, we suggest a battery of tests for future FAS cases to further our study and understanding of the syndrome.