Aphasia is a language disorder that negatively affects a person's ability to talk,
understand the spoken word and also their reading and writing
Broca's Aphasia (expressive) When a stroke injures the frontal
regions of the left hemisphere, different kinds of language
problems can occur. This part of the brain is important for putting
words together to form complete sentences. Injury to the left
frontal area can lead to what is called Broca’s aphasia.
Survivors with Broca's aphasia: Can have great
difficulty forming complete sentences. May get out
some basic words to get their message across, but
leave out words like “is” or “the.” Often say something
that doesn’t resemble a sentence. Can have trouble
understanding sentences. Can make mistakes in
following directions like “left, right, under, and after.”
Wernicke's Aphasia (receptive) People with serious comprehension
difficulties have what is called Wernicke’s aphasia
Often say many words that don’t make sense. May fail to realize they are saying the wrong words; for instance,
they might call a fork a “gleeble.” May string together a series of meaningless words that sound like a sentence
but don’t make sense. Have challenges because our dictionary of words is shelved in a similar region of the left
hemisphere, near the area used for understanding words.
Conduction a type of fluent aphasia with a prominent impairment with repetition. Damage typically involves the arcuate
fasciculus and the left parietal region. The patient may be able to express him- or herself fairly well, with some
word-finding issues, and comprehension can be functional. However, the patient will show significant difficulty repeating
phrases, particularly as the phrases increase in length and complexity and as they stumble over words they are attempting
to pronounce. This type of aphasia is rare.
Anomic A mild form of aphasia. The most prominent difficulty is in
word-finding, with the person using generic fillers in utterances, such as
nonspecific nouns and pronouns (e.g., "thing"), or circumlocution, where the
person describes the intended word. Comprehension and repetition of words
and sentences is typically good; however, the person may not always recognize
that a word they have successfully retrieved is the correct word, indicating
some difficulty with word recognition.
Transcortical Sensory: A type of fluent
aphasia similar to Wernicke's with the
exception of a strong ability to repeat
words and phrases. The person may
repeat questions rather than answer
them ("echolalia").
Transcortical Motor: A type of
nonfluent aphasia similar to
Broca's aphasia, but again with
strong repetition skills. The person
may have difficulty spontaneously
answering a question but can
repeat long utterances without
difficulty.
Mixed Transcortical: A combination of the two transcortical aphasias where both
reception and expression are severely impaired but repetition remains intact.
Originating from the Greek word "aphatos" which
means speechless
aphasia is a symptom resultant of pre-existing brain damage, such as Alzheimer's disease or stroke (with over 30%
of stroke victims suffering aphasia to some degree).