Abstract
We present a case of crossed aphasia in a 75-year-old male who is Japanese-Korean bilingual and right-handed. Neurological examination found mild left hemiplegia and global aphasia. Cranial MRI revealed an extensive lesion of infarction in the region of the right middle cerebral artery. As his speech function is limited to one spontaneous word, “aigo : ” , the condition was diagnosed as global aphasia. The bilingual acquisition in the patient was in the coordinate pattern. The recovery of his speech symptoms was evaluated as the selective recovery type, as the auditory comprehension only of Japanese improved while that of Korean remained unchanged. Three possible factors were extrapolated for the improvement of speech symptoms in the patient : 1) natural recovery, 2) mastery level of Japanese was higher than that of Korean, and 3) the patient received speech training for Japanese only. Because the patient is a Japanese-Korean bilingual who developed right-handed crossed aphasia, this suggests his bilingual speech function was lateralized in the right hemisphere.
