Abstract
Alajouanine (1956) defined three types of jargon aphasia - undifferentiated, asemantic and paraphasic jargon - and postulated the so-called "three-step recovery hypothesis of jargon", that is, these jargon types evolute in this order in a recovery course of a jargon aphasic. However, very few observations supporting the hypothesis were actually reported. This paper is concerned with the experience of treating a jargon patient whose disorganization of speech varied in this order during seven months since the onset of cerebral infarction. The recovery course of her jargon aphasia was divided into four stages. After the first acute stage of an untranscribable jargon, a neologistic jargon was observed in the second stage. She presented an undifferentiated jargon only in reading tasks. In the third stage, neologisms were decreased, and one misused word or semantic paraphasia, "Jii-chan" ("grandpa"), was produced stereotypically. In the last fourth stage, a large amount of misused words, including "Jii-chan", with few neologisms was found. It can be considered that speech output of the final stage corresponded to semantic jargon. The observation of the recovery course of this patient may support the three-step recovery hypothesis of jargon aphasia as postulated by Alajouanine.
