Atypical conduction aphasia and the right hemisphere: Cross-hemispheric plasticity of phonology in a developmentally dyslexic and dysgraphic patient with early left frontal damage

Neurocase. 2011;17(2):93-111. doi: 10.1080/13554794.2010.498380. Epub 2010 Sep 4.

Abstract

We report the rare case of a patient, JNR, with history of mixed handedness, developmental dyslexia, dysgraphia, and attentional deficits associated with a Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome and a small subcortical frontal lesion involving the left arcuate fasciculus. In adulthood, he suffered a large right perisylvian stroke and developed atypical conduction aphasia with deficits in input and output phonological processing and poor auditory-verbal short-term memory. Lexical-semantic processing for single words was intact, but he was unable to access meaning in sentence comprehension and repetition. Reading and writing deficits worsened after the stroke and he presented a combination of developmental and acquired dysgraphia and dyslexia with mixed lexical and phonological processing deficits. This case suggest that a small lesion sustained prenatally or early in life could induce a selective rightward shift of phonology sparing the standard left hemisphere lateralisation of lexical-semantic functions.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Agraphia / etiology
  • Agraphia / physiopathology*
  • Aphasia, Conduction / etiology
  • Aphasia, Conduction / physiopathology*
  • Dyslexia / etiology
  • Dyslexia / physiopathology*
  • Female
  • Frontal Lobe / pathology*
  • Frontal Lobe / physiopathology
  • Humans
  • Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber Syndrome / physiopathology
  • Middle Aged
  • Neuronal Plasticity / physiology*
  • Neuropsychological Tests
  • Phonetics
  • Semantics
  • Stroke / complications