Visuospatial analysis of the printed word

Abstract

Aphasic individuals often lose the ability to analyze written information phonetically because of left hemisphere damage experienced through cerebrovascular accident (CVA) or head trauma. In this study, aphasic and normal adults demonstrated use of a right hemisphere visuospatial strategy to analyze printed whole words and word parts such as prefixes and suffixes. The performances of the two groups were similar, suggesting that the hypothesized strategy could be useful as a reading approach for aphasics.