Symptoms of Aphasia
- A symptom is a deviation from normal function which
indicates the presence of a disorder.
- Temporary condition -As recovery takes place, some of these
characteristics will lessen or disappear gradually and others
will take their place.
- Different combinations - One aphasic will exhibit only a
few of these symptoms; another patient will exhibit a different
combination of symptoms.
- Spoken Language - Inadequate or inappropriate use of
language through speech is the most readily observed. There are
symptoms of omission in which linguistic units cannot be retrieved
or are partially omitted, and symptoms of commission in which
incorrect elements are selected unintentionally.
- Anomia refers to word finding difficulty. Patient is
unable to evoke, retrieve, or recall a particular word. The
problem is most evident in the case of nouns, but this may be
because nouns constitute a large proportion of a speaker's word
use. Some patients, unable to evoke an elusive word, substitute
another word, phrase, gesture or use circumlocutions (i.e.,
they talk around or about the specific word. Verbal paraphasia
and circumlocutions may be examples of a more generalized
category of symptoms called anomia.
- Paraphasias - A paraphasia is a symptom of
commission in that it is an incorrect word substituted for an
intended or target word. It is the product of a breakdown at a
stage of word-retrieval process and is a dominant symptoms
within the more general category of anomia.
- Phonemic paraphasias also called literal
paraphasias, involve the substitution, addition, or
rearrangement of speech sounds so that the error can be
identified as sounding like the target. Goodglass and Kaplan
(1972) used the criterion that more than half of the
intended word is preserved. Examples: pike/pipe,
- Verbal paraphasias are identified based on
whether there is a semantic relationship between the error
and the intended word. Examples: wife/husband;
- Neologistic paraphasias are spoken words which
cannot be identified as having come from the patient's
language. Example: planker/comb; pinwad/light
- Circumlocutions - Some patients, unable to evoke an
elusive word, substitute another word, phrase, gesture or use
circumlocutions (i.e., they talk around or about the specific
word. The circumlocuting patient might say, "I wear it right
her (pointing to his wrist) " and I tell time with it."
- Agrammatism - category of symptoms which include
inadequate sentence productions. Agrammatism refers to attempts
at sentence formulation in which the muscle is present but the
skeleton is missing. Content words, such as nouns and verbs,
are produced; but function words such as articles, verb
auxiliaries, and prepositions, are omitted. Utterances sound
like a telegram (telegraphic speech). Example: (1) Uh,
boy...and, uh, girl; (2) Mother, father...making dogs,...hot
dogs; a boy, no two boys...and baseball; (3) Its a mother and a
father fixing hot dogs..a picnic; I have two sons like
this...boys playing baseball.
- Jargon - Almost opposite of telegramese in many
respects, jargon is lengthy, fluently articulated utterance
which makes little or no sense to the listener. It may consist
of verbal and neologistic paraphasias.
- Neologistic jargon consists of neologistic
- Semantic jargon consists of unrelated verbal paraphasias
- Example: "My job was...original...him..concerned
with...particulars...of...so that I could tell him
exactly what to take, and where to...take it from...so
that I could get away to the ...gestures for the
conditions of one side...which would give me particular
items or discussion according to that. I should have then
convolve to the complete asculation...which would give me
particulars to tendon, but I am not... not...available
throwing back particulars until they were given to me."
This example consists mainly of content or dictionary
words. It illustrates a tendency for semantic jargon to
maintain the syntactic component of language while the
semantic component is elusive.
- Verbal Stereotypes - A verbal stereotype is a very
restricted form of expression as it is used repeatedly by a
patient, as if it were the only language form available.
- Auditory Comprehension - Aphasics with disturbances in
the comprehension of spoken language hear the speaker but have
difficulty understanding what is being said. The problem tends to
become worse as utterance length or complexity is increased.
Patients have difficulty when they are competing signals or when
there is a rapid change in the nature of content of the message
Patient's ability to comprehend may depend upon the general
familiarity of the words used, the length, and informational
content of the message, grammatical complexity, and intellectual
demands. These deficits include failure to follow an instruction
correctly, or irrelevant responses to questions.
- Written Language - Aphasic writing usually exhibits
patterns which are similar to the speaking impairment. The writing
component of aphasia is called agraphia. Linguistic symptoms can
be masked by right-handed muscle weakness and by left-handed
- Reading - The reading deficit in aphasia has been
called alexia, dyslexia. The dyslexias are observed in two ways,
either during silent reading for comprehension or during reading