Acquired Language Disorders
Aphasia
Understanding Aphasia
Aphasia is a language disorder caused by damage to the language-controlling centers of the brain, typically in the left hemisphere. It impacts your ability to communicate through speaking, understanding, reading, writing, or signing.
Aphasia does not affect a person's intelligence or thinking skills, but it makes communicating thoughts and ideas difficult. The severity and recovery vary widely based on the cause and extent of the brain damage.
Causes
Aphasia is most frequently caused by a stroke. Other potential causes include:
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
Brain tumors
Brain infections
Progressive neurological disorders
Signs and Symptoms
A person with Aphasia may experience difficulty in one or more areas of communication:
Expressing
Trouble finding words (tip-of-the-tongue moments), using wrong words (e.g., related words or made-up words), switching sounds within words, or having trouble forming complete sentences.
Understanding
Difficulty following fast speech, understanding complex directions, comprehending language in noisy settings, or interpreting non-literal language like jokes or sarcasm.
Reading & Writing
Problems reading signs, spelling words, writing sentences, or managing numbers/math (e.g., telling time or counting money).
Diagnosis and Treatment by an SLP
Evaluation
The SLP will test your ability to understand words and directions, produce spoken and written language, and identify alternative methods of communication (like gestures or drawing).
Treatment
Aphasia treatment focuses on recovering lost language skills and developing compensatory strategies to improve communication effectiveness.
Therapy Goals: Improving word retrieval, sentence formation, and understanding of spoken language. Focusing in life participation based on the patients personal goals.
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC): Utilizing non-verbal tools like writing, drawing, pointing to pictures/letters, or using a computer to express ideas.
Family & Group Work: Therapy often involves family members and group sessions to help practice and generalize new communication skills in daily life.