Communication Disorders

Question 1

Aphasia

Answer 1

• an acquired neurological impairment of processing for receptive and expressive language
• result of brain damage, head trauma, CVA, tumor or infection
• classified based on observation of fluent or non fluent speech
• poor prognosis characteristics: perseveration of speech, severe auditory comprehension impairment, unreliable yes/no answers, use of empty speech without recognition of impairments

Question 2

Fluent aphasia

Answer 2

• involves temporal lobe, wernickes area or regions of parietal lobe
• word output and speech production are functional
• prosody is acceptable, but empty speech/jargon
  = speech lacks substance
• use of neologisms

Wernickes aphasia
Conduction aphasia

Question 3

Wenickes Aphasia

Answer 3

• lesion: posterior region of superior temporal gyrus
• known as receptive aphasia
• comprehension (reading/auditory) impaired
• good articulation
• impaired writing
• poor naming ability
• motor impairment not typical

Question 4

Conduction Aphasia

Answer 4

• lesion: supramarginal gyrus, arcuate fasciculus
• severe impairment with repetition
• intact fluency, good comprehension
• speech interrupted by word-finding difficulties
• reading intact, writing impaired

Question 5

Non-fluent aphasia

Answer 5

• frequently the frontal lobe (anterior speech center) of the dominant hemisphere is affected
• poor word output and dysprosodic speech
• poor articulation and increased effort for speech
• content is present, but impaired syntactical words

Brocas aphasia
Global aphasia

Question 6

Brocas aphasia

Answer 6

• lesion: 3rd convolution of frontal lobe
• expressive aphasia
• most common form
• intact auditory and reading comprehension
• impaired repetition and naming skills
• paraphasias are common
• motor impairment typical

Question 7

Global aphasia

Answer 7

• lesion: frontal, temporal, parietal lobes
• comprehension is severely impaired
• impaired naming, writing, repetition skills
• may involuntary verbalize, usually without correct context
• may use nonverbal skills for communication

Question 8

Treating aphasia

Answer 8

• cueing strategies must avoid verbal input and use tactile and visual cues
• have only one person speak to the patient at a time
• use concise sentences and yes/no questioning
• allow patient adequate time to process and respond
• allow ample time for communication during treatment
• attempt to allow the patient to perform an activity or segment of therapy without repetitive feedback

Question 9

verbal apraxia

Answer 9

• non-dysarthric and non-aphasic impairment of prosody and articulation of speech
• verbal expression is impaired secondary to deficits in motor planning
• unable to initiate learned movement even though they understand the task
• lesions are found in left frontal lobe

Question 10

dysarthria

Answer 10

• motor disorder of speech that is caused by an upper motor neuron lesion that affects the muscles used to articulate words
• speech is slurred
• may affect respiratory or phonatory systems due to the weakness