Laura Thorburn, M.S., CCC-SLP
Aphasia is a brain disorder that affects a person’s ability to communicate. There are different types of aphasia, and they can have different impacts on a person’s speech.
This article explains the types of aphasia, how someone with aphasia may sound when they talk, and how aphasia can be treated.
Speech therapy is an important part of treatment for aphasia. Everyone deserves the ability to communicate. With speech therapy, many people with aphasia can make great progress. They can communicate more easily with others, express their wants and needs, and in some cases regain their speech.
What is aphasia?
The human brain has two halves: the left side and the right side. Our language skills typically develop on the left side. This can vary, but in the majority of people, language processing happens on the left side of the brain. When areas of this side of the brain are damaged, a person’s language abilities can be impaired.
Aphasia is a disorder that occurs as a result of this damage. The damage can be caused by a stroke, a physical trauma to the brain, or a tumor.
Aphasia is most strongly associated with adults. However, there are some rare instances in which children experience brain damage before or during birth, resulting in aphasia.
Can people with aphasia still talk?
Aphasia can make it hard for a person to speak, understand language, read, and write. The severity can range dramatically. For some people, it can be almost impossible to communicate. In other people, their language is only slightly affected.
Sometimes aphasia disrupts only one aspect of language. A person might have a hard time stringing words together in sentences, or recalling the names of people and things. However, it’s more common for aphasia to affect multiple parts of communication. This can make it hard for people to communicate with loved ones, do everyday household tasks, take part in social activities, or do their jobs at work.
How aphasia affects a person’s speech
Different aspects of speech and language take place in different parts of the brain. Because of that, where the brain damage is located will determine what kind of aphasia a person has. It will affect how their speech sounds and the communication problems they may have.
Let’s look at some common types of aphasia and their symptoms.
Wernicke’s aphasia
Wernicke’s aphasia results from damage to the temporal lobe of the brain. People with Wernicke’s aphasia most often have difficulty grasping the meaning of spoken words. While they can usually talk, their sentences may not make sense, and they may add unnecessary words or create made-up words. Often, they are unaware of these mistakes. As a result, it can be difficult for listeners to follow or understand what the person is trying to say.
How do people with Wernicke’s aphasia speak?
Wernicke’s aphasia is often called “receptive” or “fluent” aphasia. The main symptom of Wernicke’s aphasia is difficulty expressing ideas in a meaningful way.
The person may produce sentences that are fluent and have appropriate grammar. However, some words will be irrelevant, have incorrect sounds, or not even be words at all (also known as neologisms). For example, a person with Wernicke’s aphasia may describe an outing by saying something like, “You know that smake pintered and that I want to get him round to take him again.”
Broca’s aphasia
Broca's aphasia can result when the frontal lobe of the brain is injured. This type of aphasia can affect how a person puts words together to create clear, complete sentences.
People with Broca's aphasia often have severely reduced speech output, which means they talk in short sentences with great effort. As a result, their vocabulary may be limited. They may have difficulty forming intelligible sentences, and they often leave out small words like “is,” “the,” or “and.”
How do people with Broca’s aphasia speak?
Broca’s aphasia is often called “expressive” or “non-fluent” aphasia. The main symptom of Broca’s aphasia is that it’s harder to produce words when both speaking and writing.
A person with Broca’s aphasia can usually only say a few words at a time. They use nouns more often than other parts of speech. Terms such as “telegraphic speech” have been used to describe the language that results. For example, a person with Broca’s aphasia may say something like “Me, car, go, beach” to express “I drove my car to the beach.”
Global aphasia
Global aphasia is generally the most severe form of aphasia. It results from extensive damage to parts of the brain responsible for language. People with global aphasia can have severe communication problems. They may say only a few recognizable words, understand little or no spoken language, and not be able to read or write. They may also say the same few sounds, words, or phrases repeatedly.
How do people with global aphasia speak?
The hallmark symptom of global aphasia is nonfluent speech. The person may be limited to a single sound, word, or group of sounds and repeat them over and over. The melody and rhythm of their speech may sound correct, but it may be hard to understand because the sounds or words are repeated.
Here’s an example of how a person with global aphasia might sound:
Speech therapist: “How are you?”
Person: “Je je je je jeee.”
There are other types of aphasia, such as primary progressive aphasia, anomic aphasia, conduction aphasia, transcortical motor aphasia, transcortical sensory aphasia, and mixed transcortical aphasia. A doctor or speech-language pathologist can diagnose the type of aphasia and recommend the right treatment.
How can speech therapy help someone with aphasia?
Aphasia can be treated. Some people will see natural improvements in their language and communication in the first few months after a brain injury, even without treatment. However, even after this recovery period, symptoms often remain, and speech therapy is usually recommended. In fact, research shows that people make more improvement when they start speech therapy right after the injury.
Speech therapy helps people recover from aphasia and regain their ability to communicate. The main goals of speech therapy are to:
Relearn communication skills that were lost
Restore as much speech and language as possible
Improve the ability to communicate overall
Recovery from aphasia can vary from person to person. The best speech therapy for aphasia is individualized, since what works for one person may not work for another. Also, speech therapy will change and evolve as the person with aphasia improves and can take on more difficult tasks.
Along with individual speech therapy, it can also help to join an aphasia group. Your doctor or speech therapist may have suggestions for support groups. There are also helpful resources at aphasia.org.
How is aphasia treated?
Depending on the person’s speech, language, and social needs, the speech therapist will include their family and caregivers when setting therapy goals. Some strategies and techniques that may be used in speech therapy include the following:
Melodic intonation therapy (MIT): This type of therapy is typically used for more severe forms of aphasia. It helps people use the musical elements of speech (melody, tone, stress, and rhythm) to relearn how to speak. Basically, it’s a version of singing what you want to say. Other techniques used in MIT include reducing speech rate and left-hand tapping.
Semantic feature analysis (SFA): This type of speech therapy is a word-finding approach. With SFA, the person with aphasia chooses important semantic features of a word that’s tough for them to say in the moment. For instance, if the person is having trouble finding the word for “dog,” they would be prompted with questions about a dog, such as “Where do you find this? What does it do?”
Oral reading for language in aphasia (ORLA): This therapeutic approach consists of reading sentences aloud repeatedly. The goal is to improve the person’s reading comprehension.
Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC): For more severe cases, speech therapists teach people with aphasia other ways of communicating that don’t involve speech. These might include using simple hand gestures, writing, pointing to letters and pictures, or using a computer or electronic device. These forms of communication are called augmentative and alternative communication, or AAC.
Online speech therapy for people with aphasia
As you can see, “aphasia” is an umbrella term for different types of language challenges. But regardless of the type, speech therapy can make a big difference in the person’s quality of life. The ultimate goal of speech therapy for aphasia is to improve the person’s ability to communicate and connect with others.
Expressable speech therapists are experienced in treating all types of aphasia. With online speech therapy, clients don’t need to travel to a clinic or hospital for sessions, and caregivers can easily attend along with them. To learn more about how we treat aphasia, for yourself or a loved one, schedule a free consultation call. We’re here to support you and answer your questions!
