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Lexical Agraphia in a Young Man with Multifocal Brain-Injuries: A Danish Case Study

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Part of the book series: Neuropsychology and Cognition ((NPCO,volume 9))

Abstract

The study describes a young, Danish lexical agraphic’s history of illness and the medical, psychological and speech-therapeutic findings. The subject’s brain damage is multifocal, but primarily right sided judged by the severe behavioral and gnostic symptoms. His language is moderately paraphasic. Formal evaluation of the subject’s reading and spelling at the age of 21 reveals that his reading is comparatively correct and slow, but his spelling is defective and affected by orthographic irregularity, while his ability to segment words is preserved. An analysis of the spelling errors in the subject’s many self-composed essays demonstrates that his spelling in 30% of all his written words is almost exclusively phonemic. This result is discussed in the light of the complex Danish orthography and in terms of e.g. Danish school children’s patterns of spelling errors. This leads to a reconsideration of the concept of ‘phonologically plausible spelling error’ in other studies of lexical agraphia. Finally, the relation between the subject’s method of spelling, his paraphasia, his reading and the loci of brain damage is discussed.

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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Kihl, P. (1995). Lexical Agraphia in a Young Man with Multifocal Brain-Injuries: A Danish Case Study. In: Leong, C.K., Joshi, R.M. (eds) Developmental and Acquired Dyslexia. Neuropsychology and Cognition, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1241-5_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1241-5_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4473-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-1241-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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