Current Concept of Aphasia

This article summarizes the era from when Paul Broca had first introduced his aphasia case study and theory in 1861 to clinical-neuroanatomical approach which was widely known until early twentieth century. The article also comprises the cognitive-neuropsychological approach which appeared after the cognitive revolution in 1956. It investigated and compared the definition, classification method and the primary research object of aphasia in the perspectives of clinical-neuroanatomical approach and cognitive-neuropsychological approach. Each approach has its own advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, it is inappropriate to only support for a certain approach but better if two approaches are incorporated together and used effectively in certain situations. In order for the best research and treatment for the aphasic patients, clinical practitioners who prefer clinical-neuroanotomical approach and researchers who prefer cognitive-neuropsychological approach should participate together to incorporate the two approaches.

Standardization of Korean Version of Frenchay Aphasia Screening Test in Normal Adults

OBJECTIVE: To develop Korean version of Frenchay Aphasia Screening Test (K-FAST) and to standardize K-FAST in normal adult population in Korea. METHOD: The 'river scene' of stimulus set in original version of FAST was adapted for K-FAST. English version of the test instructions and scoring methods were translated into Korean and reverse-translation was performed by English- Korean bilinguals. The test structures and language domains (comprehension, expression, reading, and writing) were unchanged and possible maximum score was 30 points. We standardized K-FAST in 240 normal adult populations (male 102, female 138) whose ages were above 44. Basic personal information was collected through an interview and we performed Edinburgh handedness inventory (EHI), K- MMSE and K-FAST. Subjects who had history of brain disease, cognitive communicative disorders, or K-MMSE scores less than 2 percentile of same age group were excluded. K-FAST scores were analyzed according to the age and education groups. RESULTS: Mean EHI, K-MMSE, and K-FAST scores in total subjects were 9.4+/-1.2, 25.9+/-2.8, 25.4+/-3.3 points, respectively. Post-hoc analysis of K-FAST scores according to age groups classified into 3 age groups, 45~64, 65~74, and > or =74 years and education groups into 0, 1~9, > or =10 years of total education. K-FAST scores decreased significantly as increase of age (r=-0.441, p=0.000) and decrease of total years of education (r=0.580, p=0.000). CONCLUSION: Newly adapted K-FAST can be used for screening of aphasia in Korea and the standardized data according to age and education levels may provide useful reference values for interpretation of the results of K-FAST.

Application of Dual Route Model in Reading Korean Words in the Acquired Dyslexic Patient after Stroke

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether the dual route model is applicable to Korean word reading in acquired dyslexia after stroke. METHOD: Sixty-two year old patient with dyslexia after left inferior temporal and occipital lobe infarct was evaluated according to the lexical processing. After evaluation of general cognitive and language function, visual perception, semantic, and lexical stages were assessed. RESULTS: Visual perception was appropriate, and semantic categorization and picture-word matching tasks were 80.6% and 78.6% correct, respectively. Lexical decision task showed no significant differences within word classes, except shorter reaction time in reading words of Korean origin than those of chinese origin (p <0.05). The patient was able to read only 39.8% of tested words, and he could not read all the non-words. Reading of high frequency word was superior (65.4%) to that of low frequency words (10.9%) and semantic errors were not remarkable (p <0.05). CONCLUSION: The patient showed characteristics of recovery from deep to phonologic dyslexia with impairment of grapheme to phoneme conversion (GPC) route. These findings support that dual route model is applicable to Korean word reading.