Language disorders

Aphasia

Acquired language disorder from damage to the dominant/left hemisphere. May affect:

Spoken expression

Auditory comprehension

Reading

Writing

How aphasia is classified

1. Fluency

2. Auditory comprehension

3. Repetition

4. Naming

How Clinicians Differentiate Aphasia Types

Step 1: Is speech fluent or nonfluent?

Step 2: Is auditory comprehension relatively preserved?

Step 3: Is repetition impaired or spared?

Step 4: Are naming errors prominent?

Broca’s aphasia(NONFLUENT)

Nonfluent, effortful speech with relatively preserved auditory comprehension

Global aphasia(NONFLUENT)

Severe impairment across all language modalities

Transcortical motor aphasia(NONFLUENT)

Similar to Broca’s aphasia, but repetition is preserved.

Mixed transcortical aphasia(NONFLUENT)

Severe expressive and receptive impairment with preserved repetition

Characteristics of Nonfluent Aphasia

Effortful, halting speech

Agrammatism

Word-finding difficulty

Repetition impaired

Auditory comprehension relatively better than expression

Self-monitoring often preserved

Wenicke’s aphasia (FLUENT)

Fluent output with severe auditory comprehension impairment

Conduction aphasia (FLUENT)

Fluent speech with disproportionately poor repitition

Anomic aphasia(FLUENT)

Relatively preserved language with prominent word-finding difficulty

Transcortical sensory aphasia(FLUENT

Similar to Wenicke’s aphasia, but repetition is preserved.

Characteristics of Fluent Aphasia

Effortless, fluent speech

Phrase length typically > 9 words

Frequent paraphasias

Use of both content and function words

Speech may sound grammatically well-formed but lack

meaning

Self-monitoring is often poor