Aphasia in Children
This term refers to the loss of or reduced ability to speak, write, or to understand the meaning of words due to brain damage resulting from such varied factors as cerebral vascular accident (strokes), tumors, penetrating wounds, and diseases that produce brain damage. The brain is divided into two hemispheres; normal adult language is controlled by the left hemisphere regardless of whether the individual is left or right handed. This dominance is not well established in young children and a newborn infant or an infant with damage to the left hemisphere develops language normally with the right hemisphere. As the child gets older the left hemisphere dominance becomes stronger and its ability to recover from injury to this hemisphere declines, thus a two or three year old suffering from damage to the left hemisphere will lose his language to some degree, but within months the right hemisphere will take over the language function and language development will be normal.
In adolescence the ability to recover from such injuries lessens as the brain becomes less plastic, and injury to the left hemisphere may result in loss of the ability to understand language or to use it.