psych 345 lecture 17 - The Neurological Basis of Language II

true or false: aphasia arises from damage to peri-sylvian regions

true! these regions are supplied by the middle cerebral artery which supplies brocas area, wernickes area, and the arcuate fasciculus

true or false: aphasia is an intelligence disorder affecting IQ

false! aphasia is simply a language disturbance, IQ is not impaired, communication is

name the 6 characteristics of aphasia

1. paraphasia

2. neologism

3. word salad

4. circumlocution

5. spontaneous speech

6. repetition

paraphasia

the production of unintended phonemes/sylables (phonemic paraphasia), words (verbal paraphasia), or phrases during speech

neologism

a novel “word” or expression; typically meaningless

word salad

confused, unintelligible mixture of random words and phrases

anomia

deficit in word-finding ability — is the most notable and widespread deficit in the aphasias

circumlocution

saying things in a round about way, going in circles without ever really getting to the point

spontaneous speech

speech without being prompted or conversing during an unstructured interview

what do researchers look for in spontaneous speech?

• fluent speech

• effortlessness

• word-finding problems

• stammering

• short phrases (telegraphic speech)

repetition

can the patient repeat a simple word or sentence, typically a novel string of words

fluent aphasia

fluent speech, may have difficulties in auditory verbal comprehension, repeition of words, phrases, or spoken sentences by others may or may not be intact

non-fluent aphasia

difficulties in articulating but still have relatively good auditory verbal comprehension (speech is not fluent); repetition may or may not be intact

name the 4 types of fluent aphasia

1. wernickes

2. transcortical sensory

3. conduction

4. anomic

wernickes aphasia characteristics

sensory/receptive aphasia

• is fluent

• comprehension is impaired — inability to grasp meaning

• reading and writing severely impaired

• repetition impaired

true or false: damage to wernickes area = inability to access semantics

true!

transcortical sensory aphasia

same type of aphasia as wernickes but with intact repetition because the damage is near wernickes area, patients can access phonological info sent to brocas area but still cant access meaning

conduction aphasia

a rare form of aphasia located in the arcuate fasciculus

• fluent

• comprehension

• repetition is impaired — spontaneous speech is fluent but paraphasic

anomic aphasia

all aspects are preserved but spontaneous speech is impaired

• speech is full of vague words, circumlocutions, and the tip-of-the tongue feeling

name the 4 types of non-fluent aphasias

1. brocas

2. transcortical motor

3. global

4. mixed transcortical

brocas aphasia

expressive/motor aphasia (an output problem)

• nonfluent — laborious speech, leaving out function words and grammar to convey whatever they can

• comprehensive

• repetition is impaired

transcortical motor aphasia

similar to brocas but repetition is intact

true or false: repetition depends on an intact arcuate fasciculus

true! this is why transcortical motor aphasia leaves repetition intact, the arcuate fasciculus is unaffected

global aphasia

the most severe form of aphasia — a combination of wernickes and brocas aphaisia

mixed transcortical aphasia

like global aphasia but repetition is intact — this is a large lesion but some sparing including arcuate fasciculu