[A study of alexia in Chinese language].

Twenty-five cases of alexia were examined with Chinese Alexia Test which was devised according to the features of Chinese ideogram. The result of our study showed that alexia in Chinese ideographic language differs from alexia in western phonographic languages. It has its own characteristics and is manifested as following patterns: difficulty in reading aloud, dissociation of appearance and meaning of character, alexia of combinative character, alexia of associative compounds, alexia of abstract word, visual paralexia, surface alexia, deep alexis, phenomenon of word completion (formation of words by addition of another character), substitution with neologisms, perseveration in alexia, character and word alexia, syntactic alexia, and total alexia. Twenty-five cases of alexia were classified according to Benson's classification of alexia as anterior, central, subcortical aphasic and total alexis. One case with proterior alexia was briefly reviewed. The main differential points of various alexia in Chinese language were suggested.