title: Speech and language in primary progressive anarthria.
abstract: We describe a patient with a progressive loss of speech up to muteness due to frontal atrophy. The clinical and neuropsychological examination documented a severe progressive articulatory disorder associated with a mild language deficit consisting of agrammatic production and spelling errors. Investigation of the patient's auditory-verbal short-term memory system revealed a selective impairment of the articulatory rehearsal system (covert re-circulation of verbal information), suggesting that not only overt but also covert articulation is impaired in this pathology. The conclusion is drawn that pure anarthria is a disorder of executive aspects of language. The hypothesis is advanced that language deficits such as spelling errors and agrammatic features might be due to ineffective covert articulation.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neurology, Catholic University, Rome, Italy. silveri@rm.unicatt.it
authors.forename: Maria Caterina
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Silveri
authors.forename: Antonella
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cappa
authors.forename: Bruna Lorena
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Salvigni
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001284:Atrophy; D003071:Cognition; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology