Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology · 2001 · 21 citations · 18 references
Health ProfessionsNeurologySpeech-language PathologyAphasiaCommunication DisordersLanguage AcquisitionAphasia SyndromesChildhood AphasiaExpressive AphasiaLanguage DisordersLanguage ImpairmentLanguage-based Learning DisabilitiesEpilepsy-aphasia SyndromesEpileptic SyndromesFunctional ImagingLandau-kleffner SyndromeLanguage Comprehension ImpairmentLinguistic ExpressionOral Language ComprehensionOral Language Impairment
Acquired epileptic aphasia (AEA, or Landau-Kleffner syndrome) is a unique condition in which children can lose oral language (OL) comprehension and expression for a prolonged period. These children can benefit from visual forms of language, mainly sign language (SL), but the quality of SL has never been analyzed. The case is reported here of a boy with AEA who lost speech comprehension and expression from 3 years 6 months to 7 years and was educated in SL from the age of 6 years. His SL was evaluated at the age of 13 years and 6 months and compared with a control child with congenital sensorineural deafness. It was found that: (1) our patient achieved the same proficiency in SL as the control child with deafness; (2) SL learning did not compete with, but perhaps even hastened, the recovery of OL. Intact ability to learn a new linguistic code such as SL suggests that higher-order language areas were preserved and received input from a separate visual route, as shown by neuropsychological and functional imaging research in deaf and hearing signers.
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Helen J. Neville, Daphné Bavelier, David P. Corina et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 1998 · 520 citations · Full text
Frank Morrell, Walter W. Whisler, Michael C. Smith et al. · Brain · 1995 · 391 citations