speech and language disorders

Last reviewed 01/2018

There are several key terms that are crucial to the description of speech and language disorder:

• dysphasia / aphasia, which is a disorder in the use of symbols whether, spoken, heard, written or read. It may be:
• expressive:
• usually the result of a lesion in the front of the lower end of the motor cortex: Broca's area
• nominal: cannot find correct word - paraphrasias
• and / or unable to pronounce polysyllabic words correctly.
• language may be telegraphic and non-fluent
• distressing to patient who is aware of condition
• receptive:
• usually due to lesions of Wernicke's area in the posterior superior temporal lobe
• at its mildest, the patient cannot comprehend abstract concepts
• more severely, speech is muddled by uncorrected mistakes due to a deficit of language analysis
• dysarthria - a disorder of articulation
• dysphonia - a disorder of vocalisation
• dyslexia - this is the impairment of ability to comprehend written language