The corpus callosum and cerebral speech lateralization.

In order to specify the callosal involvement in the establishment of cerebral lateralization, a dichotic listening task was administered to six subjects with congenital absence of the corpus callosum, two callosotomized patients, and two hemispherectomized patients. The acallosal subjects were also compared to six subjects matched for age, sex, and hand dominance as well as to six subjects also matched for IQ. Our findings indicate that language functions, as assessed by dichotic listening performance, are more strongly lateralized in callosal agenesis subjects than in IQ-matched normal controls. Our results also reveal that hemispherectomized patients typically show a strong ear-advantage favoring the ear contralateral to their remaining hemisphere. Callosotomized patients, on the other hand, show a more variable pattern of results that seems to be related to the postsurgical time interval. Finally, our findings suggest that there might be a relationship between IQ and lateralization in subjects with borderline or mild deficiency.