The disturbance of nonverbal functions in dysphasia.

Abstract

Various modalities of six neuropsychological functions (graphia, calculia, finger gnosis, right-left orientation, praxia and constructive praxia) referred to as parietal or nonverbal have been investigated in the light of speech disorders. We examined 20 patients with brain lesion of vascular origin, who met the diagnostic criteria of mild and moderate dysphagia, 13 patients with Wernicke's and 7 with Broca's dysphasia. Verbal and nonverbal functions in patients with ischemic focuses of the speech area of the left hemisphere were investigated the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE). The investigation revealed that the presence and the type of mild and moderate dysphasia had a noteworthy role in pathoplasticity of correlated signs, thus implying in clinical practice a parietal lesion. Generally, poorer and at the same time more heterogeneous results were obtained in patients with Wernicke's dysphasia, mostly on calculia and right-left orientation. Finger agnosia was not considered as an authentic parietal sign, while each modality of graphia was impaired to a varying extent in speech disorders caused by presylvian and retrosylvian lesions. The paper also deals with the significance of lobulus parietalis inferior in speech.