LANGUAGE DEFICITS IN A CHILD WITH OMOLATERAL (LEFT) TEMPORO-BASAL ANDCEREBELLAR LESIONS

We report the case of an 8-year-old boy with two distinct brain lesion s, probably hamartomas or low grade gliomas: one in the left basal tem poral region, with involvement of the fusiform gyrus, the other in the white matter of the left cerebellar hemisphere. Both lesions were dia gnosed at seven, when NMR was performed because of partial complex sei zure. A mild delay in the first language acquisition and a long-lastin g difficulty in word retrieval were reported. On neuropsychological te sting, language was impaired more in production tasks than in comprehe nsion ones, with severe deficit in word finding. The etiological role of the two different lesions is discussed in relation to experimental evidence of the existence of a distinct language area in the basal tem poral region (fusiform gyrus). (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All righ ts reserved.