Cortical word deafness in a child: a case history.

Despite the recent report of Goldstein et al. (1975) on pure word deafness in an adult, it still seems worthwhile to study the case of cortical deafness in a child, not only because we believe this to be one of the very few cases duly reported upon, but also because of its interesting pathological history, its implications for the existence of specific speech sound detectors, and its evidence of pathological communicative behavior which deviates from that of a deaf child.