Editorial Acquired Aphasia in Children

There are few disorders in child neurology, even in medi-cine, about which thinking has changed more drastically over the last quarter century than acquired aphasia in chil-dren. The thinking at the time is exemplified by Lenneberg’s 1967 seminal book Biological Foundations of Language,1 which contrasts childhood acquired aphasia with aphasia in adults. Lenneberg summarized the litera-ture and, based on his review of 17 adequate reports from the literature and eight personal cases, divided children into four groups. He stated that when a focal brain lesion is sustained between ages 20 and 36 months, children recapitulate all the stages of language learning, from vocalization and babbling to single words, primitive two word phrases, etc until perfect speech is achieved, and he concluded that recovery is due to reacquisition rathe