On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Pure alexia, also known as agnosic alexia or alexia without agraphia or pure word alexia sweet potato fries, is one form of alexia which makes up “the peripheral dyslexia” group. Pure alexia is also known as: “alexia without agraphia”, “letter-by-letter dyslexia”, “spelling dyslexia”, or “word-form dyslexia”.

Pure alexia results from cerebral lesions in circumscribed brain regions and therefore belongs to the group of acquired reading disorders, alexia, as opposed to developmental dyslexia found in children who have difficulties in learning to read. The patient can still write because the pathways connecting the left-sided language areas to the motor areas are intact. However, many people with pure alexia are able to identify and name individual letters over time as well as recognize sequences of letters as words. Studies have shown that pure alexia may be a result of a disconnection syndrome. Pure alexia exhibits some unexpected residual abilities despite the inability to read words. For instance, one patient had preserved calculation capabilities such as deciding which number was greater, and whether a number was odd or even with greater than chance probability.

The study showed that the patient was also able to calculate simple arithmetic tasks such as addition, subtraction, and division, but not multiplication, even though the patient could not read the numbers. In patients, a common symptom is letter-by-letter reading or LBL. This action is a compensatory strategy which these patients use in order to come up with a semblance of reading. It is essentially looking at the consonants and vowels of the word and sounding them out as they sound. Though there have been ample attempts to rehabilitate patients with pure alexia, few have proven to be effective on a large scale. Most rehabilitation practices have been specialized to a single patient or small patient group. At the simplest level, patients seeking rehabilitation are asked to practice reading words aloud repeatedly.

This is meant to stimulate the damaged system of the brain. The eye movements of pure alexic patients during reading and nonreading tasks”. How to make the word-length effect disappear in letter-by-letter dyslexia: implications for an account of the disorder”. Spelling dyslexia: a deficit of the visual word-form”. Alexia without agraphia: a century later”. Visual attention in posterior stroke and relations to alexia”.

The human brain: an introduction to its functional anatomy. Baylor Neurology Case of the Month”. Center for Aphasia Research and Rehabilitation. Pure alexia as a disconnection syndrome: New diffusion imaging evidence for an old concept”. Calculating Without Reading: Unsuspected Residual Abilities In Pure Alexia”. The impact of severity upon implicit recognition in pure alexia”. Their final breakup was in 2020.