Aphasia in Atypical Populations.

Was Leborgne—the first Broca's patient—a member of a typical population? As far as we can learn from Broca's writings (Broca, 1861) he was a patternmaker until the age of 30 when he became aphasic. The only statement concerning his background is that `he could not write because his right hand was paralysed'. Maybe we can assume that he was right handed, a French speaker, not bilingual and had a good hearing because he understood some questions which he answered with gestures that were often apraxic. The nature of the lesion is uncertain (Castaigne et al ., 1980) but yet this case represents the major first step in more than 100 years of research on aphasia. Throughout history our attention was first focused on the heart (Gross, 1995), then on the ventricles and on the skull (Finger, 1994), and, presently, on the brain. Many models can orientate modern research. We can look at the question of aphasia in terms of a software program (language) and a hardware device (brain), although all of us agree that this is a very artificial and reductionist way of approaching the problem. For the sake of clarity in presenting the general content of this important book we will use this approach. We can consider that there are different software programs (tone languages, signed languages), some more complete (two or more languages), some with different accessories (orthographic or ideographic written expression) and some incomplete (without the written expression). On the other hand, the hardware devices can have different potentialities. Besides the standard model, we can consider a developing stage (when the lesion occurs in childhood), or fully developed in adulthood (when the lesion occurs). In this latter case we can have a gradient of functional balance between each of the cerebral hemispheres. This is the way this …