Acquired Aphasia in Children, 1991 Acquisition and Breakdown of Language in the Developing Brain NATO Science Series D: Series, Vol. 60

One of the most fascinating problems in Behavioural Neurology is the question of the cerebral organization for language during childhood. Acquired aphasia in children, albeit rare, is a unique circumstance in which to study the relations between language and the brain during cerebral maturation. Its study further contributes to our understanding of the recovery processes and brain plasticity during childhood. But while there is a great amount of information and experimental work on brain-behaviour relationships in adult subjects, the literature about the effects of focal brain lesions in children is both exiguous and scattered throughout scientific journals and books. We felt it was time to organize a meeting where scientists in this field could compare their experiences and discuss ideas coming from different areas of research. A workshop on Acquired Aphasia in Children was held in Sintra, Portugal, on September 13-15, 1990, and attended by 44 participants from 13 differents countries. The atmosphere was relaxed and informal and the group was kept small to achieve this effect. It was a very lively and pleasant meeting. Some consensus was indeed arrived at concerning methodological problems, definition of terms, and guidelines for future research. The main contributions are collected in this book which, we hope, will serve the scientific community as a reference work on Childhood Aphasia. I,P.M., AC.C.

I - Introduction.- II - Normal Language Development.- The acquisition of language in normally developing children: some basic strategies and approaches.- III - Methodological Problems in Studies of Acquired Aphasia in Children.- Patient selection in studies of aphasia acquired in childhood.- Analysis of Lesion Localization and Size.- Clinical techniques to assess language in young children.- Test battery for Language and Speech Assessment.- IV - Hemispheric Specialization.- The ontogenesis of hemispheric specialization: insights from acquired aphasia in childhood.- Crossed aphasia as a model of atypical specialization.- Symptom pattern and recovery outcome in childhood aphasia: a methodological and theoretical critique.- V - Clinical Features of Acquired Aphasia in Children.- Characteristics of Language in Acquired Aphasia in children.- Fluent aphasias in Children.- Type of Aphasia and lesions’ Localization.- VI - Prognosis for Recovery of Acquired Aphasia in Children.- Outcome of Acquired Aphasia in childhood: Prognosis factors.- Recovery from aphasia and lesion size in the temporal lobe.- Acquired childhood Aphasia: Outcome one year after onset.- VII - Late Sequelae of Early Brain Lesions.- Scholastic Achievement after early brain lesions.- Late sequelae of right vs left hemispheric lesions.- Selective deficits in Language Comprehension following early left and right hemisphere damage.- The role of central activation (arousal) in the recovery of cognitive functions after cerebral injury in children.- VIII - Landau and Kleffner Syndrome.- The conception and embarrassing birth of an eponym.- Landau and Kleffner syndrome: Diagnostic considerations.- Natural History, Course and prognosis of the Landau and Kleffner Syndrome.- Speech therapy in Landau and Kleffner Syndrome.- The Landau-Kleffner Syndrome: Rehabilitation.