Typically, a stroke on the left side of the brain causes significant damage in the language processing region. A new study by scientists is proving that it’s not always the case. Teenagers and young adults that have suffered a stroke as an infant, or even before they were born, to the left side of the brain can regain normal language processing skills to the opposite side of the brain. Adults that have this type of stroke almost always lose their language skills whether it be speaking, or understanding properly. When it comes to babies, they recover the loss from the left side of the brain to the right side of the brain in the same region.
When a stroke has occurred it effects one side of the brain. Whichever side the stroke happened will effect the opposite side of the body. The right side of the brain processes imagination, music, creativity and emotions. The left side of the brain processes reasoning, math and language. Suffering a stroke has its own significant losses whether it be to the right brain or the left brain.
Siblings of stroke patients have also had brain studies by MRI to see how their brains are different. The sibling that did not suffer from a stroke had full language ability on the left side of the brain. The sibling that did suffer a stroke as an infant showed the exact same ability on the right side of the brain as if it were a mirror image. Typically in an infant the language processing ability shows on both the left and right side of the brain, but as they get older it fully takes to the left side. Scientists have proven that when one side of the brain gets damaged, the other side will sometimes take over and recover what has been damaged.
Source: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/babies-language-brain-stroke?tgt=nr
