Hemispheric alpha asymmetries in fluent and dysfluent aphasics during linguistic and resting conditions.

The hemispheric alpha asymmetries of a group of normal males, normal females, fluent aphasic males and dysfluent aphasic males were investigated during the auditory presentation of sentences, a short story and a resting condition in the absence of linguistic stimuli. No differences were found for the groups' mean alpha ratio scores during the resting condition. Fluent aphasics were found to demonstrate greater right hemispheric alpha suppression than the other groups for the sentence and story conditions. The dysfluent aphasics showed greater right hemispheric alpha suppression for the sentence condition than either of the normal groups. Results are discussed in terms of the right hemisphere's contribution to language recovery following unilateral left hemispheric damage resulting in aphasia.