Diazepam therapy of verbal auditory agnosia.

A 7-year-old girl suffered from a gradual loss of her ability to understand speech. But she had normal hearing and understood various environmental sounds. Brain computerized axial tomography showed normal, but electroencephalogram revealed spike and wave activity from temporal leads, especially on the left side. She was diagnosed as having verbal auditory agnosia. The treatment consisted of diazepam therapy. One year after the onset, her impaired auditory comprehension dramatically improved with the use of diazepam. The dichotic listening test revealed a left ear advantage for both environmental sounds and spoken words. The results seemed to suggest that in this patient the right hemisphere might be functioning as a speech center instead of the left one.