Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2000, Page 185

Flugur, smágreinar og umrœðuefni
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HEIMILDIR
Guðrún Ámadóttir. 2000. A-ONE. Árnadóttir OT-ADL Neurobehavioral Evaluation.
Fræðilegur bakgrunnur. íslensk þýðing hugtaka. Háskólinn á Akureyri, Akureyri.
Sigríður Magnúsdóttir og Höskuldur Þráinsson. 1988-1989. Málstol og málfræðistol.
Um heilastöðvar, máltraflanir og málfræði. Islenskt mál 10-11:85-124.
Goodglass, Harold. 1993. Understanding aphasia. Academic Press, San Diego.
Goodglass, Harold, & Edith Kaplan. 1983. Greiningarpróffyrir máltruflanir (afasíu).
Sigríður Magnúsdóttir og Höskuldur Þráinsson þýddu og staðfærðu. Heymar- og
talmeinastöð íslands, Reykjavík.
SUMMARY
‘To be able to write but not to read: alexia without agraphia’
Keywords: aphasia, alexia, agraphia, reading, writing, neurolinguistics, brain scien-
ces, speech pathology
This note reports on a case of alexia without agraphia. The patient was admitted to
The National University Hospital in Reykjavík where he underwent neurological
evaluation. On the Icelandic version of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination
he showed very good general expressive and receptive linguistic skills, except for the
inability to name and identify colors (and a slight anomia, which did not cause any
problems). His arithmetic skills were also intact and he recognized the numbers with-
out problems. He could not, on the other hand, recognize any letters and could not
read at all, but he could write quite legibly. He was, however, unable to read what he
had written. But when words were spelled aloud for him, or written in his palm, he
had no problem recognizing them and “reading” them. It was only when the infor-
mation was received visually that he had reading problems. Brain imaging revealed
damage to the splenium in corpus callosum and to the visual association cortex in the
left part of the brain. Thus visual information coming from the right could not be
interpreted by the damaged visual association cortex in the left hemisphere. And
although visual information coming from the left could be interpreted visually in the
visual association cortex in the right hemisphere, it could not be sent to the language
area in the left hemisphere for linguistic interpretation because of the damage to the
corpus callosum. Hence the alexia. But since nothing was wrong with the language
areas themselves, linguistic information that reached them through different (i.e. non-
visual) channels could be interpreted without problems.
Sigríður Magnúsdóttir talmeinafrœðingur
Endurhœfingardeild
Landspítala - háskólasjúkrahúsi
IS-101 Reykjavík, ÍSLAND
siggatal@landspitali.is
Kolbrún Benediktsdóttir lœknir
Röntgendeild
Landspítala - háskólasjúkrahúsi
IS-101 Reykjavík, ÍSLAND
kolben@landspitali.is