Balint's syndrome in a 10‐year‐old male

Abstract

A 10‐year‐old male was referred with difficulties at school. He had particular difficulty with reading long words, following the sequence of text down a page, writing words in the correct order, writing words in line, and copying from the blackboard. He had a history of infective endocarditis complicated by intracerebral haemorrhage at the age of three years. Detailed history taking revealed symptoms typical of ‘dorsal stream’ pathology, namely a deficit of ‘vision for action’ . This included a spatial disorder of attention (simultanagnosia), defective hand and foot movements under visual control (optic ataxia), and acquired oculomotor apraxia which are consistent with Balint's syndrome. Strategies were suggested for coping with the symptoms and one year later a distinct improvement in adapting to the disability was found.