[Anomic aphasia in a 5-year-old child following herpetic encephalitis]. / Afasia nominum in un bambino di 5 anni successiva ad encefalite erpetica.

ABSTRACT

Aphasia is a rare neurologic disorder in childhood. Nevertheless some authors believe that some subtle aphasic syndromes as anomic aphasia are not always identified and the real prevalence of aphasia in childhood is higher. We observed a case of aphasia during the acute period of Herpes Simplex Encephalitis in a 5 years old, right handed, boy with a good level of fluent speech. Six weeks after his initial assessment language was spontaneous, fluent, with normal prosodhy and articulation, but reduced, without content words, with frequent circunlocutory speech, semantic paraphasias, anomic latencies, real anomias, "pass partout" words. This picture was suggestive for anomic aphasia in a normally fluent context. Anomic aphasia can be produced by the disconnection between cortical and subcortical systems. Documented cases of anomic aphasia in childhood are rare. Our case present great similarities with adult cases in terms of localisation and denomination difficulties.