Abstract
A case of crossed aphasia with jargonagraphia was reported. We discussed the underlying mechanisms of the subject's jargonagraphia from the standpoint not only of free running hypothesis (Yokoyama et al., 1981) , but also of phonological disorders and voluntary action disorders of the upper limbs. The case was a 56-year-old right-handed male suffering from fluent aphasia after cerebral infarction on January 7, 1999. MRI showed lesions of the temporo-parieto-occipital lobes in the right hemisphere. Language comprehension was well preserved, and one prominent symptom other than jargonagraphia was literal paraphasias. Our data showed that : 1) his abilities in tracing letters were intact, suggesting that his motor engrams of writing behavior were well preserved ; 2) he showed great difficulties in processing more than one phonemic letter or phoneme ; and 3) he could not voluntarily stop the actions of his right upper limb according to instructions. These observations suggest that voluntary action disorders of the upper limbs accompanying motor engrams of writing behavior lateralized in the intact hemisphere, when control has been lost from the center of the phonological processing lateralized in the affected hemisphere, result in jargon selectively seen in writing behaviors.
