CONGENITAL VISUAL AGNOSIA AND PROSOPAGNOSIA IN A CHILD - A CASE-REPORT

We present an eight years old child, L.G. with congenital agnosia and prosopagnosia. This is a special case of perceptual deficits in a chil d which are discrete and exist in the context of a very high verbal in telligence. L.G. was administered an extensive battery of tests of cog nitive functioning. He has intact basic visual skills, although his vi sual analysis is sometimes slow. L.G. can read, write and do math at a ge level or above. Four normal eight years old boys were used as contr ols on a selection of the perceptual tests, administered to L.G., whic h did not have normative data. L.G.'s object recognition skills bear t he hallmarks of adult apperceptive agnosia. His visual memory and imag ery are normal. Tests of face processing skills reveal, unlike adult p rosopagnosics, severe deficits in addition to the familiar face recogn ition problem. L.G.'s agnosia and prosopagnosia are compared to the re levant literature.