Aphasia
In this world, humans and animals alike have come to communicate by using various mechanisms. Humans have advanced themselves beyond other organisms by using language, or a set of codes and symbols, in order to express themselves to others. Language has brought about a means to create new thoughts, to explore, and to analyze our everyday surroundings. It has also enabled us to retain past memories and to look deep into the advances for the future. However, for some individuals, this tool for communication has been plagued by a language and speech disorders, such as aphasia. Aphasia is the loss of the ability to speak or understand speech or written language. It is often detected at an early age, and contributes to the general class of speech and language disorders affecting "5% of school aged children" (1) . Aphasia is classified into three categories. The main two are receptive or sensory aphasia and expressive or motor aphasia. Receptive aphasia affects the input side and "the ability to understand spoken or written language may be partially or totally lost" (1) . Those with expressive aphasia "can speak but not find certain words or names, or may be totally unable to communicate verbally or by writing" (1) . For a majority of affected individuals, there is a combination of the two. The third type is conduction aphasia. This "involves disruption of transmission between the sensory and motor ends of the circuit" (1) . Here, individuals are able to produce speech despite the lack of connections to the input side. It seems that the ability to speak has a lot to do with your surroundings and how much emphasis was placed on developing this skill during the first few years after birth. Afterall, it's known that the first few years are critical because this is the time when the brain is "plastic" and is rapidly changing and being molded. By the time that adolescence is reached, the brain has become "less plastic". In this paper, I would like to explore theories proposed to try to understand the origins of this impairment.
Ongoing research has tried to pinpoint exact reasons as to why there is speech impairment for those with aphasia and other language disorders. Most theories suggest genetic and environmental implications. Is the speech disability some sort of defect from within the brain, or does the disability develop as a result of influence from your surroundings and lack of nurture from others?
The two types of aphasia discussed in class is non-fluent aphasia and fluent aphasia. Aphasia can occur when there is damage to the left hemisphere of the brain, which is the language center of the brain. People with non-fluent aphasia will say or sign random words, there will be little or no function words/signs, similar to the telegraphic stage of language development. People with fluent aphasia will be able to produce sentences with function words, but the sentences will contain miss-selected words/signs.
Alzheimer’s disease, named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer, is a disease that is on the rise in America and the rest of the world. People should learn as much as they want about this disease, because as you age, your chances of becoming an Alzheimer’s Disease, or AD, patient increases. It is estimated that approximately 3 percent of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 have the illness, and more than half of all people over age 85 have the ailment.
Alzheimer’s disease or AD is an incurable disorder of the brain that results in loss of normal brain structure and function. In an AD brain, normal brain tissue is slowly replaced by structures called plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. The plaques represent a naturally occurring sticky protein called beta amyloid and in an Alzheimer’s brain, sufferer’s tend to accumulate too much of this protein. Neurofibrillary tangles represent collapsed tau proteins which, in a normal brain along with microtubules, form a skeleton that maintains the shape of the nerve cells. In Alzheimer’s disease, the tau proteins break loose from their normal location and form tangles. Without the support of these molecules, nerve cells collapse and die. As normal brain structure is lost with progression of the disease, brain function also degenerates. Patients afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease display a gradual mental decline. Initially, and most apparently, there is a loss of short-term memory. Eventually, as a patient progresses to later stages of the disease, the brain becomes so damaged that patients can no longer communicate or recognize immediate family or even themselves. They have difficulty walking and standing and frequently fall. In the final stages, they lose bladder and bowel control and have difficulty with swallowing, frequently leaving them malnourished and dehydrated. Eventually, they are forced to remain bedridden and, without the help of life-prolonging measures provided in a hospital, die. However, this level of deterioration is severe and may take as long as twenty years. Because of the disease’s slow progress and its usual later start in a person’s life, a victim of AD will usually die first of natural causes. Under the objectives ...
This paper will delve into the functions of a neuropsychologist and how the practitioner uses these tools to assist people with the various afflictions that arise from problems in the human temporal lobe. A pivotal area of the temporal lobe and language comprehension. is the Wernike’s area. When there is damage to this section of the brain, a condition related to language problems is known as Wernike’s a phasia. Aphasia is known as a severe language. impairment but with this version the person is still able to speak fluently but are unable to comprehend written and spoken language.
Alzheimer’s disease is a complex illness that affects the brain tissue directly and undergoes gradual memory and behavioral changes which makes it difficult to diagnose. It is known to be the most common form of dementia and is irreversible. Over four million older Americans have Alzheimer’s, and that number is expected to triple in the next twenty years as more people live into their eighties and nineties. (Johnson, 1989). There is still no cure for Alzheimer’s but throughout the past few years a lot of progress has been made.
Aphasia can be defined as a disorder that is caused by damage to parts of the brain that are responsible for language (“Aphasia” n.p.). Wernicke’s aphasia is a type of fluent aphasia (with the other type being nonfluent). It is named after Carl Wernicke who described the disorder as “an amnesiac disorder characterized by fluent but disordered speech, with a similar disorder in writing, and impaired understanding of oral speech and reading” (“Wernicke’s” n.p.). Wernicke’s aphasia can also be known as sensory aphasia, fluent aphasia, or receptive aphasia. It is a type of aphasia that is caused by damage to Wernicke’s area in the brain, in the posterior part of the temporal lobe of the left hemisphere. This area of the brain contains motor neurons responsible for the understanding of spoken language and is believed to be the receptive language center (“Rogers” n.p.). Wernicke’s aphasia can be most efficiently defined as a fluent language disorder commonly caused by strokes and characterized by difficulty comprehending spoken language and producing meaningful speech and writing which is both assessable by an SLP and treatable by a variety of methods.
Language is integral to learning as it is linked to our thoughts. It helps us to organise our thoughts in an organised way. If a child has difficulties in communicating with others due to a speech and language delay or disorder, they will not be working to their full potential, as they will be less able to organise their thought processes and express themselves. This becomes even more of a problem as children become older and the curriculum becomes more demanding, the use of rational and abstract thinking will become more important, hence the importance of early detection and intervention. The early years are a time of rapid learning and development, therefore the earlier the diagnosis of delayed language acquisition, the easier it will be for professionals and others to target the childâ€TMs needs so that they are able to give appropriate support, thus benefiting the
performance that involves, but is not limited to, a loss in at least 2 of the
In this day and age, it seems as though almost everyone has experience a loved one taken away form a very serious disease known as Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is unbelievably devastating for everyone affected by it. This disease is causing major economical problems such as less occupancy in the nursing homes, and hospitals due to the rising population of elderly men and women being diagnosed with it everyday. Because there is not yet a cure for this disease and the percent of the population being diagnosed keeps rapidly rising, more time and money needs to go towards Alzheimer’s research.
Alzheimer's Disease Introduction to Alzheimer's Alzheimer's disease is a progressive, degenerative disease of the brain. It was first described by the German neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915). in 1905. This disease worsens with advancing age, although there is no evidence. that it is caused by the aging process.
"My most valuable tool is words, the words I can now use only with difficulty. My voice is debilitated - mute, a prisoner of a communication system damaged by a stroke that has robbed me of language," stated A. H. Raskins, one of approximately one million people in the United States who suffer from aphasia (1), a disorder which limits the comprehension and expression of language. It is an acquired impairment due to brain injury in the left cerebral hemisphere. The most common cause of aphasia is a stroke, but other causes are brain tumors, head injury, or other neuralgic illnesses. Of the estimated 400,000 strokes which occur a year, approximately 80,000 of those patients develop some form of aphasia (2). Another important observation is that within the United States, there are twice as many people with aphasia as there are individuals with Parkinson's disease (2). Yet, what is so astounding is the lack of public awareness about aphasia. Aphasia attacks an intricate part of a person's daily life - the simple act of communication and sharing. The disbursement of such a tool deprives an individual of education learned through their life, often leaving the ill fated feeling hopeless and alone. In considering the effects of aphasia, a deeper analysis of the two most common forms of aphasia will be examined: Broca's aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia. While both forms occur usually as a result of a stroke in the left hemisphere of the brain, their particular site of impairment produces different side effects in an individual's comprehension and speech. These regions have been further studied through experimental researches such as positron emission tomography (PET). Moreover, although there is currently no cure for the disorder, there are treatments and certain guidelines to follow when encountering an aphasic.
Salonen, L. (2013). L. S. Vygotsky 's psychology and theory of learning applied to the rehabilitation of aphasia: A developmental and systemic view. Aphasiology, 27(5), 615-635. doi:10.
Communication is one of the most important aspects of daily life. Being able to express oneself in a succinct timely manner is something many people take for granted. Losing the ability to communicate can come in many different forms. Aphasia is a deficiency in language, which may affect comprehension, expression, reading and writing, in any combination or all four at once (Sundin, Jansson, & Norberg, 2000). It is crucial to understand the differences between primary progressive aphasia and stroke based Aphasia in order to allow for a better familiarity with the disorders and a clearer understanding of the best therapy to approach them with.
There comes a time in our life when we know what we want to say, but it does not come out the way we thought it would. Such as being worried about reading out loud in class, going up to an employee in a fast food restaurant to order a simple meal, or making a presentation in class can be terrifying for most individuals with an articulation disorder. An articulation disorder consist of having difficulties producing sounds, substituting sounds, leaving out letters in a word, or adding or changing letters in a word. In most cases when individuals have trouble articulating words he/she might have problems with the main articulators which include: the jaw, lips, teeth, tongue, velum, alveolar ridge, and hard/soft palate. These articulators play
Communication is very crucial in life, especially in education. Whether it be delivering a message or receiving information, without the ability to communicate learning can be extremely difficult. Students with speech and language disorders may have “trouble producing speech sounds, using spoken language to communicate, or understanding what other people say” (Turkington, p10, 2003) Each of these problems can create major setbacks in the classroom. Articulation, expression and reception are all essential components for communication. If a student has an issue with articulation, they most likely then have difficulty speaking clearly and at a normal rate (Turkington, 2003). When they produce words, they may omit, substitute, or even distort sounds, hindering their ability to talk. Students who lack in ways of expression have problems explaining what they are thinking and feeling because they do not understand certain parts of language. As with all types of learning disabilities, the severity can range. Two extreme cases of expression disorders are dysphasia and aphasia, in which there is partial to no communication at all (Greene, 435, 2002). Individuals can also have a receptive disorder, in which they do not fully comprehend and understand information that is being given to them. They can experience problems making sense of things. “Children may hear or see a word but not be able to understand its meaning” (National Institutes of Health, 1993, p1). Whether children have difficulty articulating speech, expressing words, receiving information, or a combination of the three, there is no doubt that the tasks given to them in school cause frustration. These children experience anxiety when...