Types of Aphasia

Wernicke’s Aphasia (receptive)

People with serious comprehension difficulties have what is called Wernicke’s aphasia and:

• Often say many words that don’t make sense.
• May fail to realize they are saying the wrong words; for instance, they might call a fork a “gleeble.”
• May string together a series of meaningless words that sound like a sentence but don’t make sense.
• Have challenges because our dictionary of words is shelved in a similar region of the left hemisphere, near the area used for understanding words.

Broca’s Aphasia (expressive)

When a stroke injures the frontal regions of the left hemisphere, different kinds of language problems can occur. This part of the brain is important for putting words together to form complete sentences. Injury to the left frontal area can lead to what is called Broca’s aphasia. Survivors with Broca’s aphasia:

• Can have great difficulty forming complete sentences.
• May get out some basic words to get their message across, but leave out words like “is” or “the.”
• Often say something that doesn’t resemble a sentence.
• Can have trouble understanding sentences.
• Can make mistakes in following directions like “left, right, under, and after.”

“Car…bump…boom!” This is not a complete sentence, but it certainly expresses an important idea. Sometimes these individuals will say a word that is close to what they intend, but not the exact word; for example they may say “car” when they mean “truck.”

A speech pathologist friend mentioned to a patient that she was having a bad day. She said, “I was bitten by a dog.” The stroke survivor asked, “Why did you do that?” In this conversation, the patient understood the basic words spoken, but failed to realize that the words of the sentence and the order of the words were critical to interpreting the correct meaning of the sentence, that the dog bit the woman and not vice versa.

Global Aphasia

When a stroke affects an extensive portion of the front and back regions of the left hemisphere, the result may be global aphasia. Survivors with global aphasia:

• May have great difficulty in understanding words and sentences.
• May have great difficulty in forming words and sentences.
• May understand some words.
• Get out a few words at a time.
• Have severe difficulties that prevent them from effectively communicating.

Norma