Acquired aphasia in childhood can be driven by underlying pathophysiology causing abnormal EEG activity rather than a gross structural lesion.
Raises possibility of EEG-targeted approaches in acquired childhood aphasia; hypothesis-generating from single case and needs prospective validation.
Three cases of acquired aphasia in childhood associated with marked spike-wave discharges with temporal lobe predominance are described. The degree of aphasia paralleled the EEG abnormalities; spike-wave discharges were almost continuous when the language disorder was at its peak. Improvement in the language disorder coincided with reduction in the number of paroxysmal discharges or with a change to focal origin. The aphasia appears to be the result of an underlying pathophysiology causing the abnormal EEG activity, and not the result of a gross structural lesion.
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Shoumaker et al. (1974) studied this question.
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