A rare neurologically originated speech disorder:: Foreign accent syndrome

Introduction. Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is an unusual neurological speech disorder documented in not more than twenty specific studies. As a consequence of a cerebral-mainly subcortical-injury, the patient's speech is foreign-sounding to native listeners. As subject cannot avoid this foreign accent, and given its abrupt emergence, this disorder usually involves emotional consequences by loss of identity and of belonging to a speech community. Case report. In this paper, a case from Castellon de la Plana (Spain) is presented with a injury in right basal ganglia and the literature about this topic is revised. Conclusions. From the available data, we describe the main characteristics of the syndrome and discuss the possible role of basal ganglia.