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Anomic aphasia in childhood
G W Hynd1, J Leathem, M Semrud-Clikeman
1Department of Special Education, University of Georgia, Athens 30602, USA.
Journal of Child Neurology
|July 1, 1995
Summary
Rare childhood anomic aphasia in a 10-year-old girl with a left temporoparietal hematoma showed good recovery. Despite naming difficulties, reading and spelling remained intact, offering insights into childhood brain-behavior relations.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Clinical Neurology
Background:
- Anomic aphasia in children is infrequently documented due to subtle symptoms and potential referral biases.
- Studying childhood anomic aphasia is crucial for understanding lesion localization and brain-behavior relationships in pediatric populations.
Observation:
- A 10-year-old girl presented with a left temporoparietal hematoma, leading to anomic aphasia.
- Initial symptoms included circumlocutions and significant word-finding difficulties, particularly in confrontational naming tasks.
- Despite expressive language challenges, her reading, spelling, and repetition abilities were preserved.
Findings:
- The patient exhibited significant naming impairments, including literal and semantic paraphasias, mirroring adult presentations.
- Verbal IQ recovered to near normal (86), while Performance IQ normalized (100) over an 8-month period.
- The preserved ability to read and spell object names, despite difficulty naming them, highlights a specific deficit in lexical retrieval.
Implications:
- This case supports the localization of anomic aphasia to temporoparietal regions in children.
- It underscores the potential for substantial recovery from aphasia in childhood.
- Findings contribute to the understanding of language recovery mechanisms and the modularity of linguistic functions in the developing brain.