Disruption of written language in aphasia: a case study

This study documents the performance of a Wernicke aphasic on production of written discourse. The discourse data consisted of spontaneously produced texts of three different types: narrative discourse, personal and formal letters, and expository discourse. A detailed description of the language of this aphasic at a sentence and discourse level revealed preservation of discourse structure through proper use of cohesive devices despite severe disruption of linguistic structure at a sentence level.