A case study of pure word deafness: modularity in auditory processing?
AL, a woman with an acquired disturbance of auditory processing beginning in the second decade, was originally diagnosed as having pure word deafness. Recent analysis with a wide range of stimuli suggests that her comprehension deficit also extends to a subset of musical and non-verbal environmental sounds. The perceptual demands of the different auditory stimuli appear to account for part of the apparent material specificity. Additionally, over the years, the presumed temporal lobe cortical pathology has been supplemented by a mild to moderate, peripheral low-frequency hearing loss and evidence of dysfunction in lower level auditory processing pathways. The current peripheral dysfunction closely resembles cases recently labeled as auditory neuropathy. The diagnosis of pure word deafness should not be based on a limited set of auditory stimuli; additionally, a careful assessment using modern audiological techniques should be performed to evaluate peripheral auditory functions.
Pinard
Minola
M
Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Sir Mortimer Davis/Jewish General Hospital and McGill University, Montréal, Canada.
Chertkow
Howard
H
Black
Sandra
S
Peretz
Isabelle
I
D000124:Achievement; D000328:Adult; D001077:Aptitude Tests; D001284:Atrophy / Q000473:pathology; D001300:Audiometry, Evoked Response; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001308:Auditory Perceptual Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D004584:Electronystagmography; D016057:Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem / Q000502:physiology; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006320:Hearing Tests; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012938:Social Perception; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014145:Trail Making Test; D014888:Wechsler Scales