Defects in reversal of serial order of symbols

During the latter days of World War II, Luke Teuber and I collaborated on research pertaining to penetrating injuries of the brain. At that time, our discussions focused mainly on the relationship between brain trauma and perceptual deficits. The topics of linguistics and language disorders arose only as peripheral issues which we pursued neither jointly nor severally in those years. Our continued preoccupation with perception allowed for only periodic exploration of these side issues during the more than thirty years since our initial discussions. Luke's return to these peripheral issues was evidence in his articles, “Lacunae and Research Approaches to Them,” the “Discussions” in Disorders of Language, and the forthcoming “Changing Patterns of Childhood Aphasia”. Our most recent communication, December, 1976, on the subject of language dysfunctions was in relation to the present article. It had been Teuber's hope that all the “bits and chips” surrounding the topics of brain injury, perception, and language would one day form a comprehensive and illuminating discourse. To that end and in fondest memory of Hans-Lukas Teuber, I humbly dedicate this “bit and chip” on Defects in Reversal of Serial Order of Symbols.
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Abstract

Many patients with aphasia or an organic mental syndrome who can spell a five-letter word or recite a five-digit number forward fail to do so backwards. Errors also occur in reading letters of a printed word backwards whereas no errors appear in reading conventionally. Memory defects, dysnomia, dyscalculia, learning disorders, and perseveration may co-exist with an impaired ability to reverse a serial order of symbols. It would appear that a defect in the ability to reverse a serial order may be similar to defects in other faculties observed in aphasia, e.g. anomia, acalculia, and alexia. Reversability is probably a characteristic of normal cognitive function and language processes. A defect in RS of two-, three-, or four-letter words may be considered a significant sign of cerebral dysfunction due to either a localized lesion in the dominant hemisphere or a diffuse bilateral encephalopathy.

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