Aphasia and Neurogenic Language Disorders

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering definitions, classifications, hallmarks, and evolution trends of aphasia and related neurogenic communication disorders.

Aphasia

An acquired neurogenic language disorder resulting from an injury to the brain-most typically, the left hemisphere, involving impairment in spoken language expression, spoken language comprehension, written expression, and reading comprehension.

Western Aphasia Battery (WAB)

A standard assessment tool used to evaluate aphasia in clients.

Nonfluent Aphasia

A classification where speech production is halting and effortful, grammar is impaired, but content words may be preserved.

Fluent Aphasia

A classification where the person is able to produce connected speech and sentence structure is relatively intact, though it often lacks meaning.

Broca's Aphasia

A nonfluent aphasia characterized by relatively good auditory comprehension, poor repetition, and impaired naming.

Transcortical Motor Aphasia

A nonfluent aphasia with preserved repetition and preserved comprehension, but difficulty spontaneously answering questions.

Global Aphasia

A nonfluent aphasia involving severe expressive and receptive language impairment where all areas (comprehension, repetition, and naming) are impaired.

Conduction Aphasia

A fluent aphasia characterized by relatively good auditory comprehension and impaired naming, with the hallmark symptom being impaired repetition.

Anomic Aphasia

A fluent aphasia where the hallmark is naming impairment (word-finding difficulties), while auditory comprehension and repetition remain preserved.

Wernicke's Aphasia

A fluent aphasia filled with paraphasias and neologisms, characterized by impaired auditory comprehension, impaired repetition, and impaired naming.

Transcortical Sensory Aphasia

A fluent aphasia with impaired comprehension and preserved repetition skills, where the patient may exhibit echolalia (repeating questions instead of answering).

Crossed Aphasia

An exceptional aphasia that occurs when a person demonstrates language impairment after suffering damage to the hemisphere on the dominant side of the body (e.g., a right-handed person with a right hemisphere stroke).

Subcortical Aphasia

Aphasia resulting from damage to subcortical regions such as the thalamus or basal ganglia, with symptoms mirroring cortical lesions.

Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA)

A type of dementia characterized by the gradual loss of language function while memory, visual processing, and personality remain relatively well-preserved until advanced stages.

Mixed Transcortical Aphasia

A nonfluent aphasia characterized by impaired comprehension and preserved repetition.

Circumlocution

The use of verbose language to describe an idea when a patient is circling around a specific word during episodes of anomia.

Semantic Paraphasia

The production of an unintended word that is related in meaning to the target, such as saying "spoon" for "fork".

Phonemic Paraphasia

The production of an unintended sound within a word, such as saying "loy" for "boy".

Neologism

The production of a made-up or nonsense word, such as saying "flambo" for "candle".

Right Hemisphere Dysfunction (RHD)

Damage resulting from focal or diffuse injury that impacts the "use" (pragmatics) of language rather than form/content; symptoms include attention deficits and visual-spatial concerns.

Dementia SLP Intervention Focus

Working on preserving/maintaining current functioning and increasing participation and quality of life, rather than improving current functioning.