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