[Various current trends in the study and interpretation of asphasic disorders]

This review of the present tendencies in aphasiology intends to put in evidence some features of to-day's aphasiology, in relation both to the methods used to study the language disturbances and to the concepts advanced to explain the clinical and experimental findings. From the methodological point of view, two important novelties are to be stressed : 1) the clinical approach is gradually substituted by a more strict experimental method ; 2) the pathology of language is to-day generally studied by means of linguistic methods, models and techniques. In the interpretation and classification of the aphasic troubles many tendencies are to be noted :--some Authors tend to classify the aphasic disorders on the ground of empirical criteria (such as the distinction between a "fluent" and a "non-fluent" form of aphasia) ;--other writers tend to classify the aphasic disturbances on the ground of linguistic, of neuro-anatomic, or of neuro-linguistic criteria. The results of a few experimental investigations on some dimensions of auditory language comprehension in aphasia are reported and the implication of these results on the concepts advanced by various Authors are discussed.