Acquired Childhood Aphasia with Focus on Landau-Kleffner Syndrome

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Didactics - English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 1,3, University of Münster (Englisches Seminar), course: Cognitive Linguistics, language: English, abstract: 'Aphasia is the neurological term for any language disorder that results from brain damage caused by disease or trauma.'1 The disorder is not exclusively found in adults, but may also occur in children. To lose the ability to understand and produce language may be a major catastrophe for children and has enormous consequences for their whole life, even if speech is regained after some time.2 Therefore, it is astonishing how little is known about the subject and how controversially it is discussed in literature. This paper introduces into acquired childhood aphasia with focus on a syndrome called Landau-Kleffner Syndrome, in which aphasia and epilepsy are combined. Landau-Kleffner Syndrome will be discussed in regard to symptoms, aetiology, therapy and prognosis. Moreover, it will be compared to other forms of acquired childhood aphasia.