Aphasia

Daniel Ghossein
Aphasia is defined as an acquired impairment in the use of language due to
damage to certain parts of the brain

This damage could be caused by injury, stroke, or seizures

The language deficits include difficulties in language comprehension and

execution
Major Divisions of Aphasias

All aphasias can be classified into two groups

 Fluent aphasias
 The inability to understand the language of others and the
production of less meaningful speech then normal.

 Non-fluent aphasias
 Difficulty producing fluent, articulated, or self-initiated
speech.
Types of Fluent Aphasias
 Wernicke’s aphasia
 People with this type of aphasia have difficulty or inability
understanding others speech, and produce meaningless
speech.

 They generally do not realize their speech is meaningless and are

surprised when others cannot understand them.

 They may demonstrate paragrammatical speech, which means

they use inappropriate morphemes. For instance a person my say
to you instead of for you or substitute the word pork for fork.

 This type of aphasia is produced by damage to Wernicke’s area

of the brain
More Types of Fluent Aphasia
 Conduction aphasia
 The main symptom of this type of aphasia is difficulty
repeating something someone has just said.

 People with this condition have relatively good language

comprehension and their conversational speech is only mildly
impaired.

 This type of aphasia is produced by damage to the left

temporoparietal region.

 It has been suggested that this type of aphasia could come about
because of deficits in short term memory or phoneme selection.
More Types of Fluent Aphasia

 Anomic aphasia
 This aphasia is characterized by difficulty finding names
and difficulty substituting indefinite nouns and pronouns
with substantive words. For instance, people with this
affliction will use words like, thing, stuff, or it instead of
automobiles, groceries, or furniture.

 There are very few cases of pure anomic aphasia and it is

therefore difficult to find the area of the brain responsible.

 Some have suggested that it is a mild form of Wernicke’s

aphasia.
More Types of Fluent Aphasia

 Transcortical sensory aphasia

 Symptoms of this type of aphasia are fluent speech with
some anomia, poor language comprehension, and echolalia.

 Echolalia is the tendency to repeat something someone has

just said. For instance, if a person with this type of aphasia
was asked, “What is your name?” they are predisposed to
repeat the question over and over instead of answering it.

 This aphasia may be caused by damage surrounding and

including Wernicke’s area
Non-Fluent Aphasias
 Broca’s aphasia
 This type of aphasia manifests with difficulties
initiating well-articulated conversational speech.

 The language that is produced is slow, labored, and

agrammatical, which means words like a, an, or the
and verb tense is left out of their speech.

 This aphasia is produced by damage to Broca’s area of

the brain
More Types of Non-Fluent Aphasia’s

 Transcortical motor aphasia

 People with this aphasia do not speak unless they are
strongly encouraged to do so and when they do speak it is
labored and non-fluent.

 Interestingly enough when these people are verbally

presented with long complicated sentences they are able to
repeat them fluently.

 This aphasia is produced by damage to the premotor cortex

anterior and superior to Broca’s area.
More Types of Non-Fluent Aphasia’s

 Global aphasia
 As the name suggests, this type of aphasia is characterized
by a severe depression of all language functioning.

 The people with this affliction have poor language

comprehension and speak in slow, labored jargon.

 This aphasia is caused by damage around and to Broca’s

and Wernicke’s areas of the brain.
Other Interesting Facts
About Aphasia
The handwriting of a person with an aphasia reflects
their speech impediment.

There was an experiment done where people with

Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasias were presented
with a picture and then asked to write down a
description of what they say in the picture.
This is the picture
A patient with Broca’s
aphasia wrote this

Notice the use of very few words, but the words do make some
sense
A patient with Wernicke’s
aphasia wrote this

Here: there are many, less forced, words, but they don’t
make much sense. Also because they’re not
struggling to find their words, the handwriting is
better.
References

Klein, Steve, and B.Michael Thorne. Biological

Psychology. New York: Worth Publishers Inc.,U.S.,
2007.