This book presents the work on aphasia coming out of the Institute for
Aphasia and Stroke in Norway during its 10 years of existence. Rather
than reviewing previously presented work, it was my desire to give a
unified analysis and discussion of our accumulated data. The empirical
basis for the analysis is a fairly large group (249 patients)
investigated with a standard, comprehensive set of procedures. Tests of
language functions must be developed anew for each language, but
comparison of my findings with other recent compre- hensive studies of
aphasia is faciliated by close parallels in test meth- ods (Chapter 2).
The classification system used is currently the most accepted
neurological system, but I have operationalized it for research purposes
(Chapter 3). The analyses presented are based on the view that aphasia
is an aspect of a multidimensional disturbance of brain function. Find-
ings of associated disturbances and variations in the aphasic condition
over time have been dismissed by some as irrelevant to the study of
aphasia as a language deficit. My view is that this rich and complex set
of findings gives important clues to the organization of brain functions
in humans. I present analyses of the relationship of aphasia to
neuropsychological disorders in conceptual organization, memory,
visuospatial abilities and apraxia (Chapters 4, 5, and 6), and I study
the variations with time of the aphasic condition (Chapter 8).