Abstract
A 7-year-old boy with severe acquired epileptic aphasia (Landau-Kleffner syndrome) was treated by multiple subpial transections to the left temporal lobe.
In the course of electrocorticography, event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded
to the phonemes /ha/ and /ga/; /ba/ occurred 72.5 % of the time and /ga/ 27.5 %, in
a pseudo-random sequence. The ERPs were distributed over the middle and inferior temporal
gyri and there was a marked overlap with the area of maximal spiking detected on the
electrocorticogram.
Repetition of the frequent syllable /ba/ was associated with diminution of the prominent
negative component of the ERP culminating around 550 ms suggesting habituation. Presentation
of the novel syllable /ga/ restored the amplitude of this negative component, showing
that discrimination was preserved despite the apparent global aphasia. This finding
supports clinical evidence that some children with epileptic aphasia can still process auditory speech input.
Intraoperative ERP recording may help improve our understanding of the relationship
between epileptiform activity and aspects of language processing in Landau-Kleffner syndrome where lack of cooperation precludes detailed clinical testing.
Key words
Aphasia - Syllables - Event-related potentials - Electrocorticography -
Landau-Kleffner syndrome
