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Neuropsicologia Latinoamericana
On-line version ISSN 2075-9479
Abstract
FERRERES, Aldo R.; LOPEZ, Cynthia and FABRIZIO, Susana. Surface alexia in Spanish with no semantic deficit. Neuropsicologia Latinoamericana [online]. 2012, vol.4, n.spe, pp.86-103. ISSN 2075-9479. https://doi.org/10.5579/rnl.2012.0095.
This study describes the case of patient AB, a Spanish speaker. As the result of a left occipital-temporal lesion, the patient presented with a pattern of impairments in reading aloud (slowness, loss of lexical advantage in reading times), recognition of written stimuli (errors with pseudo-homophones), and reading comprehension (homophone confusion), which are consistent with a diagnosis of input surface alexia. Surface alexia is an acquired reading disorder that was initially described in languages with opaque writing systems, such as English and French, and which has benn difficult to identify in transparent languages like Spanish. Indeed, the very possibility of its existence in Spanish-speaking patients has been questioned with very few cases having been published so far. We propose, this may be due more to the methodological difficulties in detection than to actual low incidence rates. The study of this patient also revealed intact semantic processing and phonological impairments, two findings which are not compatible with the assumptions of the "triangle" model but which can be explained by the dual-route reading model.
Keywords : Surface dyslexia; Surface alexia; Spanish speakers; Reading.