Correlates of Verbal Dyspraxia

In 1861 Paul Broca described his patient “Tan” as having lost “the memory for the procedure one has to follow in order to articulate words”. This condition he called aphemia but subsequently it became known as Broca’s aphasia. Broca described a disorder in which the patient could understand spoken language, ideas were intact and he could recognize words and phrases which he could not pronounce nor repeat. Subsequent autopsy of Tan’s brain revealed a lesion in the area of the third convolution of the frontal left lobe (later designated Broca’s area). The features of this disorder parallel some of those associated with what later on became known as dyspraxia of speech or verbal dyspraxia. By annexing the word aphasia to Broca’s name a linguistic as against motoric connotation was apparent and this sparked off a volley of controversy which has been maintained with fervour ever since.