The processing of speech sounds in a patient with cortical auditory disorder

A 56-yr old woman developed a cortical auditory disorder after two successive strokes involving the temporal lobes. Dichotic listening tests did not show a left car advantage with right ear suppression, as shown in other cases with similar disorders. Tasks exploring phonological analysis showed an impairment limited to the stop consonants. Within this framework, processing of feature place was selectively disturbed, while voicing was normally analysed. The possible role of psychoacoustic deficits in the pathogenesis of cortical auditory disorders is discussed. Some general considerations on cortical auditory disorders are also made.