Learning to read without a left occipital lobe:: Right hemispheric shift of visual word form area

Using anatomical and functional magnetic resonance imaging, we studied the pattern of brain lateralization during spoken and written language tasks, in an 11-year-old girl who underwent a left occipitotemporal resection for a Sturge-Weber angioma at the age of 4 years, that is, after the development of speech but before the acquisition of reading. We observed a selective and successful shift to the right hemisphere of the visual component of reacting, particularly the Visual Word Form Area, whereas the verbal components remained strongly left-lateralized. This emphasizes the potential utility of a precise functional and developmental cartography of language for the surgical treatment of focal brain lesions in children.