How might the left hemisphere contribute to the language problems characteristic of autism?
On the face of things, if one were looking to track down specific cortical involvement in the pathology of autism, the most logical place to begin looking would be in the left hemisphere because of its tie-in to language. In fact, one might be inclined to zero in on three specific areas: Broca’s area, in the left frontal lobe, which deals with grammar and articulation; Wernicke’s area, in the left temporal lobe, which covers sense and understanding; and the angular gyrus in the parietal lobe, which turns images into words.96 Damage to any or all of these crucial language regions could produce symptoms akin to the communication deficits of autism. Impairment to Broca’s region would leave a person able to understand words but unable to speak them with any fluency, while impairment in Wernicke’s area would produce speech that is fluent but virtually meaningless.97 Damage to the angular gyrus might result in problems with word retrieval. But, tempting as it is to simply blame the communica
