Language disorders

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, ENGLISH
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND
LEARNING
ANA LAURA RODRÍGUEZ REDONDO
 Language disorders

• Introduction
– Aphasia:
• language deficits acquired after brain damage
• Affects the production or comprehension of speech and the ability
to read or write.
• injury to the brain-most commonly from:
– a stroke
– head trauma
– brain tumors
– infections

– Not all aphasics have the same symptoms

– Language difficulties without cognitive impairment
 Language disorders

 Classification of aphasias
 Broca’s aphasia

 Wernicke’s aphasia

 Conduction aphasia

 Anomic aphasia

 Global aphasia

 Transcortical motor aphasia

 Transcortical sensory aphasia

 Summary of Aphasias
Type of Spontaneo Para- Comprehensi Repetiti
Naming Lesion site
Aphasia us speech phasias on on
Poor,
Broca’s - Good Poor Poor anterior
Nonfluent
Wernicke’s Fluent,
+ Poor Poor Poor posterior
Aphasia empty
arcuate
Conduction Fluent + Good Poor Poor
fasciculus
Fluent, with
Anomic circumlocu + Good Good Poor anywhere
tions
Virtually
Global - Poor Poor Poor large
none
Transcortic Nonfluent, Outside in
- Good Good Not bad
al motor little frontal lobe

Transcortic Outside in
Fluent + Poor Good Poor
al sensory parietal lobe
 Language disorders

 Agraphia
 disorder of language apparent in writing

 Alexia
 disorder of language apparent in reading

 Anarthria
 Disturbances of language due to:
 severe intellectual impairment
 loss of sensory input (especially vision and hearing)
 paralysis
 in coordination of the musculature of the mouth or hand
 It is not considered an aphasic disturbance per se
 Language disorders

 Primary aphasia
 due to problems with the language-processing mechanisms

 Secondary aphasia
 due to memory impairments, attention disorders, or
perceptual problems
 Summary of Symptoms
• Disorders of
Comprehension
• Poor auditory comprehension
• Poor visual comprehension
• Disorders of Production
• Poor articulation
• Word-finding deficit
(anomia)
• Unintended words of
phrases (paraphasia)
• Loss of grammar or syntax
• Inability to repeat aurally
presented material
• Low verbal fluency
• Inability to write
(agraphia)
• Loss of tone in voice
(aprosidia)
 Language disorders

 Three broad categories according to: spontaneous speech,

auditory comprehension, and verbal repetition
 Nonfluent aphasias – there are difficulties in articulating but
relatively good auditory verbal comprehension (e.g., Broca’s
severe, Broca’s mild)
 Fluent aphasias – fluent speech but difficulties either in
auditory verbal comprehension or in the repetition of words,
phrases, or sentences spoken by others (e.g., Wernicke’s or
sensory aphasia; Anomic)
 “Pure” aphasias – there are selective impairments in reading,
writing, or the recognition of words (e.g., agraphia, alexia
without agraphia)
 Wernicke’s aphasia

 Imagine a patient with Wernicke’s aphasia …

 Clinician: “Tell me where you live.”
 Patient: “Well, it’s a meender place and it has two … two
of them. For dreaming and pinding after supper. And up
and down. Four of down and three of up …” (Brookshire
& McNeil 2015:195)
 Clinician: “What’s the weather like today?”
 Patient: “Fully under the jimjam and on the
altigrabber.” (Brookshire & McNeil 2015:195)
 What is broken? What is preserved?
 Wernicke’s aphasia

 Patient is asked what brought him to the hospital.

 PARAGRAMMATISM
 “Is this some of the work that we work as we did before? …
All right … From when wine [why] I’m here. What’s wrong
with me because I … was myself until the taenz took
something about the time between me and my regular time
in that time and they took the time in that time here and
that’s when the the time took around here and saw me
around in it’s started with me no time and I bekan [began]
work of nothing else that’s the way the doctor find me that
way…” (Obler & Gjerlow 1999:43)
 Wernicke’s aphasia

 Phonemic paraphrasias
 Substitutions of individual phonemes
 include
 Addition
 Omission
 Change in position
trable for table
 pymarid for pyramid (Damasio, 1992:535)
 The more such phonemic paraphasias accumulate in a word, the
harder it is to understand it
 Neologism
 Non-words where the target word is unrecognizable
 hipidomateous for hippopotamus.
 Wernicke’s aphasia

 Neologistic Jargon
 Words that are really phoneme strings
 They are not words e.g. taenz

 I don’t know. Yes, the bick, uh, yes I would say that the
mick daysis noisis or chpickters. Course, I have also missed
on the carfter teck. Do you know what that is? I’ve, uh,
token to ingish. They have been toast sosilly. They’d have
been put to myafa and made palis and, uh, muadakal senda
you. That is me alordisdus. That makes anacronous senda”

(Buckingham and Kertesz, 1976:21 in Obler & Gjerlow 1999:59)

 Wernicke’s aphasia

 Semantic paraphrasias (empty speech)

 Failure in the selection of the proper words with which to
convey her ideas
 This deficit can be compensated for by the usage of
paraphrases.

 They are often quite simple:

 E.g. relying on generic terms like thing or stuff to stand in
for the more specific words
 Wernicke’s aphasia

 Other times, they become quite elaborate.

a Wernicke’s patient asked where he lived, answered:

 “I came there before here and returned there.” (Kandel,
1995:640)

 moderate Wernicke’s aphasia patient attempting to explain

what he had done on a shopping trip the previous day:
 ‘I went down to the thing to do the other one and she was
only the last one that ever did it, so I never did.’”
(Brookshire & McNeil 2015:195)
 Wernicke’s aphasia

 Circumlocution
 Talk around missing words
 For example:
 A moderate Wernicke’s aphasia patient attempting to tell
the examiner what she had had for breakfast that
morning:
 Patient: “This morning for – that meal – the first thing this
morning – what I ate – I dined on – chickens, but little –
and pig – pork – hen fruit and some bacon, I guess.”
(Brookshire & McNeil 2015:196)
 Wernicke’s aphasia

 Logorrhea or press of speech

 an overabundance of speech

 Probably because:
 They produce speech easily
 Their circumlocution, and their deficient self-monitoring may
contribute to their inclination to run on when they talk.
 Wernicke’s aphasia

 Clinician: “Tell me what you do with a comb.”

 Patient: “What do I do with a comb … what I do with a comb.

Well a comb is a utensil or some such thing that can be used for
arranging and rearranging the hair on the head both by men and
by women. One could also make music with it by putting a piece
of paper behind and blowing through it. Sometimes it could be
used in art – in sculpture, for example, to make a series of lines
in soft clay. It’s usually made of plastic and usually black,
although it comes in other colors. It is carried in the pocket or
until it’s needed, when it is taken out and used, then put back in
the pocket. Is that what you had in mind?”
(Brookshire & McNeil 2015:195)
 The Cookie Theft picture

The Cookie Theft picture of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination

 Broca’s aphasia

 Examiner: Describe this picture.

 Patient: kid … kk … can … cookie … caandy …well I don’t know
but it’s writ … easy does it … slam … early … fall … men … many
… no … girl. Dishes … soap … water … … water … falling pah
that’s all … dish … that’s all. Cookies … can … candy … cookies
cookies … he … down … That’s all. Girl … slipping water … water
… and it hurts … much to do. Her … clean up. Dishes … up there
… I think that’s doing it
 Examiner: What is she doing with the dishes?
 Patient: discharge no … I forgot … dirtying clothes [?] dish {?}
water …
 Examiner: What about it?
 Patient: slippery water … [?] scolded … slipped
(Obler & Gjerlow 1999:41)
 Broca’s aphasia
 Example:

 Sarah Scott months after stroke

 Sarah Scott 6 years later

 Broca’s aphasia

 Breakdown in morphology
 nouns are expressed in the singular
 verbs are expressed in the infinitive or participle

 Breakdown in modifying parts of speech

 articles, adjectives, and adverbs are eliminated
 Instead of:
I saw some large gray cats
 It is said:
 see gray cat
 Broca’s aphasia

 Breakdown in syntax: Agrammatism or telegraphic

speech
 Most expressions:
 appear to be constructed almost entirely by juxtaposition of
isolated words
 Ladies and gentlemen, you are now invited into the dining room
 Ladies, men, room
 When asked his occupation, a mailman with Broca’s aphasia
would say:
 Mail … mail … m ….
 practically devoid of the markers of grammatical relationships with
the exception of and.
 They also involve distortion of word order.
 I will go home tomorrow
 Go I home tomorrow. (Damasio, 1992, p. 533)
 Broca’s aphasia

 Perseveration or Broca’s Tan (perseveration)

 Uncontrollable repetition of a particular response, e.g. a

word, phrase, or gesture, despite the absence or cessation
of a stimulus,
 Named after Broca’s first patient, who could only say the
word "tan", which he repeated often.
 Broca’s aphasia

 The (b) sentences of each pair are difficult for Broca's

patients to understand

 1a) The boy ate the apple.

 1b) The clown chased the violinist.
 2a) The cop shot the robber.
 2b) The robber was shot by the cop.
 3a) It was the cop who __ shot the robber.
 3b) It was the robber who the cop shot __.
 Other aphasias

 Transcortical motor aphasia: Comprehension and

repetition are preserved, however, speech is
nonfluent
 Transcortical sensory aphasia: Repetition is
preserved, speech is fluent but comprehension is
impaired
 Anomic aphasia
 Comprehend speech
 Fluent speech
 Repetition OK
 Cannot name objects
 Naming problems Example
 Summary

Aphasia: imagine a world without words

 References

 Brookshire, R.H. and M. R. McNeil (2015). Introduction to Neurogenic Communication

Disorders. St.Louis. Missouri: Elsevier
 Damasio, A.R (1992). Aphasia. New England Journal of Medicine, 326: 531-539.
 Field. J. 2003. Psycholinguistics. A Resource book for students. Abingdon.Axon:
Routledge
 Harley, T. A. 2013. The Psychology of Language: From Data to Theory. Hove/New York:
Psychology Press.
 Obler, L.K. y Gjerlow, K. 1999. Language and the Brain . Cambridge : Cambridge
University Press.
 Traxler, M.J. 2012. Introduction to Psycholinguistics. Understanding Language Science.
London: Wiley-Blackwell
 Videos
 Aphasia - Imagine life without words
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGyOKItHS9Y
 Anomia video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWAUmsgk8eg&index=1&list=PL03xT_8eMJx1XG
AEMqT8OWP8WF9zEb8H1
 Sarah Scott months after stroke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aplTvEQ6ew
 Sarah Scott 6 years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9z6eX85Zn4