Hemisphericity in Aphasic Language Recovery

A hemispheric time-sharing paradigm used to assess language lateralization was administered to eight Broca's aphasics and a matched normal control group. All normal speakers revealed the expected right-hand-only disruption (indicative of left hemispheric language lateralization) in finger-tapping rate during concurrent expressive and receptive language tasks. The aphasics, as a group, revealed symmetrical manual interference indicative of bilateral language representation. Three aphasics showed consistent right-hemisphere lateralization. Whereas all normal speakers had equivalent interference across expressive and receptive language tasks, the Broca's aphasies were more adversely affected during concurrent finger tapping and expressive performance. Aphasic lateralization profiles were found to be unrelated either to language proficiency measures (BDAE) or to the site/extent of cortical lesions derived from CAT scans.

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