ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of severely impaired reading in the context of well-preserved language and, in particular, spelling abilities ("alexia without agraphia"), first described by Dejerine almost 100 years ago (1892), is a well-recognized manifestation of posterior left-hemisphere injury. The traditional account (Dejerine, 1892; Geschwind & Fusillo, 1966) of this disorder attributes the syndrome to a "disconnection" of visual information, which is restricted to the right hemisphere, from the left-hemisphere word recognition system. Alternative accounts of the disorder are discussed in chapter 6 of this volume and later in this chapter.
