Double Dissociation of Hangul and Hanja Reading in Korean Patients with Stroke

Abstract

The orthographic system of the Korean language consists of both phonogram (Hangul) and ideogram (Hanja). We report 2 patients who revealed selective impairment in reading either of orthographies after the brain damages. YJ, a 67-year-old man, showed Broca’s aphasia and severe apraxia of speech after a stroke in the left inferior parietal lobe. He demonstrated predominant difficulties in reading phonogram. KS, a 51-year-old woman, had an intracerebral hemorrhage in the left parietal lobe. She showed anomic aphasia and a selective impairment on reading ideogram. These findings support the notion that recognition of visual words is processed in different ways depending on the characteristics of orthographic systems.