Speech Problems?

Today we will talk about two different types of aphasia: Broca’s aphasia and Wernicke’s aphasia. Originally they were called that because they were the result of damage to the Broca’s area or Wernicke’s area.

However, today we use the terms to refer to the behavioral expressions of the damage regardless of its location.

Let’s begin with the Broca’s aphasia. this type of aphasia is characterized by the impairment in language production. That is, they have trouble expressing themselves not only verbally (speaking or writing), but also gesturing. They omit most pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, quantifiers, prepositions. They do, however, understand pretty well other people’s speech, as long as the structure of the sentences is not very complex. Although their perception of grammar is affected, it is not completely lost. When presented a sentence with incorrect grammar, they realize there ir something wrong in it even though they cannot tell exactly what it is. In the following video we can observe a patient suffering from Broca’s aphasia caused by a stroke. This video was taken about a year after she had the stroke.

 

 

On the other hand, Wernicke’s aphasia is also known as fluent aphasia. This is because people with this condition preserve the ability to speak  fluently; however, they have trouble recalling many words, therefore they have to stop while talking. In addition, their understanding of speech is poor. They often cannot make sense of what other people is saying or what they are reading. In the following video we see an interview of someone with Wernicke’s aphasia.

 

 

 

I hope that now we all understand the differences between Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasias better. If you didn’t, I invite you again to watch both videos they are really short and very informatives. Enjoy your spring break!