Clinical aspects of acquired aphasia and dysarthria in childhood

For the last decade, it has been a common clinical belief that the prognosis of acquired childhood aphasia is good. However, our own clinical experiences were rather conflicting on this point. As a consequence, we re-examined all the children (15) with an acquired aphasia who in a period from 1969-1972 were hospitalized in the University Hospital Rotterdam-Dijkzigt. On re-examination 7 children failed to show complete recovery (VanDongen and Loonen, 1977). One year later Woods and Teuber published an outstanding study entitled "Changing patterns of childhood aphasia", in which they also contradicted the expectation of a good recovery of acquired childhood aphasia. In addition, they criticized the view supported by the earlier literature that "childhood aphasias differ in kind from adult aphasia being predominantly motor or non-fluent". The research carried out after 1977 on the classification and the recovery of the different speech disturbances is subject of this thesis.