LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENT IN A PATIENT WITH LANDAU-KLEFFNER SYNDROME - A9-YEAR FOLLOW-UP

A longitudinal Linguistic analysis of aphasic disorder in a 15-year-ol d boy affected by Landau-Kleffner syndrome followed since the age of 6 is reported. The phonological, morphosyntactic and lexical levels of verbal deficits have been evaluated by means of collected samples of s pontaneous language and a battery of linguistic tests. The clinical co urse has fluctuated with improvement and worsening of aphasia and epil epsy; at the end of the follow-up the boy was seizure-free and a mediu m-degree disturbance in language production and comprehension was pres ent. The results of the linguistic evaluation suggest that the aphasic disturbance was related to a deficiency in phonological decoding whic h leads to phonological, morphosyntactic and lexical disturbances. A t emporal relationship between the electroclinical picture and the aphas ia has been observed: the persistent improvement in linguistic perform ances took place only after the disappearance of the seizures and of t he EEG epileptic anomalies during sleep.