Fluent Aphasia in Children

Abstract

It has been widely stated that acquired aphasia in children is invariably nonfluent. However, recent descriptions of different — including fluent- types of aphasia have modified considerably the traditional ideas on the standard clinical picture of acquired childhood aphasia. In a series of 42 children with an acquired aphasia, we observed seven cases in the peri-acute stage, which did not fit into the standard doctrine. By analyzing the main characteristics of their spontaneous speech, we wanted to investigate: (1) the frequency and degree in which the seven children show the fluency characteristics proposed by Kerschensteiner, Poeck and Brunner (1972); (2) whether a tendency for the speech/language variables to cluster according to adult types of aphasia exists; and (3) to what extent the heterogeneity of clinical pictures demonstrated in the recent literature would recur in these seven children. Our results confirm the heterogeneous clinical picture having been reported within fluent childhood aphasia.