Alexia and agraphia in Wernicke's aphasia.

Three patients with otherwise typical Wernicke's aphasia showed consistently greater impairment of reading than auditory comprehension. While this syndrome resembles alexia with agraphia, the paraphasia of speech, repetition, and naming underline the aphasic nature of the disorder. Together with previous reports of isolated word deafness in Wernicke's aphasia, these cases suggest a relative independence of auditory and visual language processing.