Abstract
SLTA or WAB, and an articulation test were performed on three cases showing aphasia and dysarthria caused by left putaminal lesion, and features of the verbal symptoms of the patients were evaluated. Test results revealed that aphasia of mild degree seen in the acute phase in all three cases, with word recall as its major feature, disappeared in the chronic phase, while dysarthria persisted in all cases. The features of articulation were as follows : 1) There was no sign of abnormality in voice ; 2) Distortion was noted in articulation, and there was no regularity in erred sound ; 3) With respect to prosody, sound and syllables were heard separately, and duration of sounds and syllables was irregular ; 4) No abnormality was present in speech modality ; 5) No sign of abnormality appeared in elongation of vowels ; 6) With diadochokinesis, speech behavior was particularly inferior when repeating trisyllables ; 7) No distinct separation existed between spontaneous speech and repetition or words read aloud. The features of articulation disorder seen in the three cases differed from dysarthria as noted in pseudobulbar palsy, dysarthria caused by spinocerebellar degenerative disease, and also from dysarthria in degenerative disease in bilateral extrapyramidal systems. The dysarthria in these three cases may be caused by lesions on or around the left putamen. The exhibited features differed in detail from anarthria although the symptoms were similar to those of cases of left putaminal lesion reported by Kaneko et al. (1989).
