Aphasia’s Speech And Language Problems Targeted For Speech Therapy

Aphasia can bring about a lot of speech and language problems that are to be treated for speech therapy. The kind of speech and language problems brought by Aphasia would highly depend on the kind of Aphasia that you may have.

Broca’s Aphasia

Broca's Aphasia is also known as motor aphasia. You can obtain this, if you damage your brain’s frontal lobe, particularly at the frontal part of the lobe at your language-dominant side.

If Broca’s Aphasia is your case, then you may have complete mutism or inability to speak. In some cases you may be able to utter single-word statements or a full sentence, but constructing such would entail you great effort.

You may also omit small words, like conjunctions (but, and, or) and articles (a, an, the). Due to these omissions, you may produce a "telegraph" quality of speech. Usually, your hearing comprehension is not affected, so you are able to comprehend conversation, other’s speech and follow commands.

Difficulty in writing is also evident, since you may experience weakness on your body’s right side. You also get an impaired reading ability along with difficulty in finding the right words when speaking. People with this type of aphasia may be depressed and frustrated, because of their awareness of their difficulties.

Wernicke’s Aphasia

When your brain’s language-dominant area’s temporal lobe is damaged, you get Wernicke's aphasia. If you have this kind of aphasia, you may speak in uninterrupted, long, sentences; the catch is, the words you use are usually unnecessary or at times made-up.

You can also have difficulty understanding other’s speech, to the extent of having the inability to comprehend spoken language in any way. You also have a diminished reading ability. Your writing ability may be retained, but what you write may seem to be abnormal.

In contrast with Broca’s Aphasia, Wernicke’s Aphasia doesn’t manifest physical symptoms like right-sided weakness. Also, with this kind of Aphasia, you are not aware of your language errors.

Global Aphasia

This kind of aphasia is obtained when you have widespread damage on language areas of your brain’s left hemisphere. Consequently, all your fundamental language functions are affected. However, some areas can be severely affected than other areas of your brain.

It may be the case that you have difficulty speaking but you are able to write well. You may also experience weakness and numbness on the right side of your body.

Conduction Aphasia

This kind is also known as Associative Aphasia. It is a somewhat uncommon kind, in which you have the inability to repeat sentences, phrases and words. Your speech fluency is reasonably unbroken. There are times that you may correct yourself and skip or repeat some words.

Even though you are capable of understanding spoken language, you can still have difficulty finding the right words to use to describe an object or a person. This condition’s effect on your reading and writing skills can also vary. Just like other types of aphasia, you can have sensory loss or right-sided weakness.

Nominal Or Anomic Aphasia

This kind of aphasia would primarily influence your ability to obtain the right name for an object or person. Consequently, rather than naming an object, you may resort to describing it. Your reading skills, writing ability, hearing comprehension, and repetition are not damaged, except by this inability to get the right name.

Your may have fluent speech, except for the moments that you pause to recall the correct name. Physical symptoms like sensory loss and one-sided body weakness, may or may not be present.

Transcortical Aphasia

This kind is caused by the damage of language areas on your left hemisphere just outside your primary language areas. There are three types of this aphasia: transcortical sensory, transcortical motor, and mixed transcortical. All of these types are differentiated from others by your ability to repeat phrases, words, or sentences.