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Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology pp 80–88Cite as

Agraphia

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Synonyms

Dysgraphia; Written language disorders

Short Description or Definition

Agraphias are acquired disorders of spelling or writing caused by neurological damage in individuals with normal premorbid literacy skills. There are several different agraphia profiles that variously result from impairments of spelling knowledge, sound-to-letter correspondences, letter-shape information, or motor control for handwriting. Although agraphia can occur in relative isolation (pure agraphia), more often agraphia co-occurs with acquired impairments of reading (alexia) and spoken language (aphasia).

Categorization

Historically, the term agraphia was introduced in 1867 by Ogle with a description of two types: amnemonic and atactic (Lorch 2013). As researchers have developed models of writing processes, these types have become termed central and peripheralsyndromes, each with subcategories. Generally speaking, several distinct forms of acquired agraphia occur that reflect specific combinations of...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Pélagie M. Beeson

  2. Neurology Section, Southern Arizona VA Healthcare System, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Steven Z. Rapcsak

  3. Department of Clinical Health Sciences, Texas A&M University – Kingsville, Kingsville, TX, USA

    Angel Ball

Authors
  1. Pélagie M. Beeson
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  2. Steven Z. Rapcsak
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  3. Angel Ball
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pélagie M. Beeson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Jeffrey S. Kreutzer

  2. Kessler Foundation, Pleasant Valley Way, West Orange, NJ, USA

    John DeLuca

  3. Independent Practice, Wynnewood, PA, USA

    Bruce Caplan

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Beeson, P.M., Rapcsak, S.Z., Ball, A. (2018). Agraphia. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_851

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