Foreign accent syndrome following a catastrophic second injury: MRI correlates, linguistic and voice pattern analyses

A case study of Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) is presented with discussion of anatomical localization of injury and comparisons of pre- and postinjury linguistic, phonetic, and acoustic speech characteristics. Because the pat ient's injury and symptoms were unrelated to previously injured left fronta l cortex, and in light of another case history (Moonis et al., 1996), we su ggest that FAS has a primary subcortical involvement. We also show that thi s case is accompanied by a deficit in linguistic, hut not affective, prosod ic expression. We agree that the "foreign" quality of the FAS speech is a p erceptual impression of the listener. and not inherent in the patient's voc alization. Finally, we suggest a battery of tests for future FAS cases to f urther our study and understanding of the syndrome. (C) 2000 Academic Press .