Through the title, it is obviously suspected that the poem is about a victim of aphasia. Aphasia is either a brain injury or disease that causes an impairment of language.
The first line of stanza one depicts the Cathy Smith Bower’s mother as mentally impaired as she repeats herself and refers to the refrigerator as a “clock”. As Bower continues to characterize the appearance of the refrigerator as old and beaten up, the poem describes a night where it was mistaken as a wild turkey. Since mistaking a refrigerator as a wild feathered creature is psychologically unhealthy, it is understood that Bower is portraying what her mentally ill mother perceived as she loudly beat the refrigerator causing it to loudly buzz and appear defected.
The
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In addition, Bower also hints towards the mother’s childhood. As the stanza continues, Bower describes the salmons’ bodies as “lean and shadowy”. She uses unappetizing descriptions of the salmons’ outward appearance in order to parallel with the sickly body of her mother. Along side aphasia, the mother shows symptoms like confusion, a decline in mental state aside from language, and looking unhealthily thin. Through the descriptions of more serous symptoms, the readers can interpret that the mother has Alzheimer’s.
As the readers reach the third stanza, the mother’s metal state has continued to get worse as she begins forgetting peoples’ names. Bower uses imagery when describing the her forgetfulness of names as “sloughed-off skin” to show how parts of the mother’s memory are starting to disappear and how they’ll never be remembered by her again, just like dead skin. The childlike interpretation of the mother is used once again as Bower describes how she communicates with her mother. Just as babies get excited for jangling car keys, her mother gets excited to finally be understood or remember something.
Again, in the fourth stanza, Bower describes her mother as childlike. However,
That flow further facilitates the fog that befalls the mind of the speaker in the poem. The alliteration connects the stanzas together, but the shortness of the alliterative passages keeps the events distinct, separating them out and creating a timeline to aid in remembering. The “bare and bright” ferry blends into the stanza, connected by the alliterative verbs “looked… leaned…[and] lay.” In the next stanza the phrases “ate an apple,” “went wan,” and “came cold” add a pulse to the verses. The alliteration concludes in the last stanza with “Good marrow, mother,” almost as if the alliteration ends as the morning begins; chronicling the night to preserve the remaining
The main focus of attention by the poet was mainly on the feelings the narrator had towards her mother after death, as this was the theme of the poem. The poem was also presented as a chronological progression, to show the order of her thoughts in order to express them effectively, as she moved from dependence to independence.
examining a mere three lines the reader already has a strong grasp of the poem's
Wernicke's aphasia is a disorder that affects a person's language and their ability to communicate meaningful messages. There are three types of aphasias: fluent aphasia, non-fluent aphasia, and global aphasia. Wernicke's aphasia is considered a fluent aphasia, in which the person affected is capable of speaking in long sentences but the words spoken do not make any sense. These individuals do not realize that their words do not make sense when communicating and others are unable to understand what they are saying. Wernicke's aphasia occurs when there is damage to the language network in the brain which is located in the middle portion
2. Aphasia is the loss of ability to understand speech or produce speech and is caused from brain damage in the left hemisphere. Paul Broca found that loss of speech was due to damage in the left frontal lobe. Broca
Aphasia is a condition characterized by the loss of ability to understand speech because of brain damage. Broca’s Aphasia can happen when an individual has a stroke and damages the frontal regions of the left-hemisphere. Aphasic disorders are categorized as fluent or nonfluent aphasia. Broca’s Aphasia is classified as nonfluent because of a lesion in the left frontal lobe on the left posterior inferior frontal region, called Broca’s area. This subdivision of the brain is important for the ability to form sentences and to string words together.
The motivation behind this paper was to fully explain Semantic Dementia in order to distinguish it from other similar disorders such as dementia of Alzheimer type (DAT), Progressive Aphasia, and Pick’s Disease. The signs, symptoms, and prognoses of Semantic Dementia were addressed in five patients. Semantic memory is long-term and contains information about objects, facts, concepts, and words and their meanings. Tasks that may be affected by semantic memory impairment include: naming, defining spoken words, word-picture and picture-picture matching, and exemplars on category fluency tests. Semantic Dementia is characterized by: (i) selective impairment of semantic memory; (ii) relative sparing of comprehension, syntax, and phonology; (iii)
Childhood-onset fluency disorder, commonly referred to as stuttering, is classified as a disruption in an individual’s ability to verbally express themselves due to involuntary movements of the tongue, repetition, or abnormal pronunciation or sounds. Stuttering is used to define both the disorder and the observed symptoms. Causes and treatments for stuttering have varied throughout history, however current research supports biological and genetic causes. An important distinction must be made between childhood-onset fluency disorders, which is medically seen as persistent developmental symptoms, and acquired stuttering. Idiopathic or neurogenic causes, the most common of which are stroke or traumatic brain injuries, are the most cited sources of acquired stuttering. Childhood-onset fluency disorder, however, is present from an early age and is considered to be more consistent, meaning that the same syllables are often mispronounced (typically towards the beginning of a word or phrase) and there is a high association between the diagnoses of stuttering and anxiety. In some cases developmental stuttering can be the result of brain lesions during childhood but if it occurs during early development the diagnoses and onset of the stuttering will follow the same trajectory as childhood-onset fluency disorder (Buchel & Sommer, 2004).
Aphasia is defined as the inability to communicate and is caused by damage to areas of the brain responsible for language processing [1]. Strokes are the main cause of aphasia, while tumors, blows to the head, and infections can also be the culprits. Aphasia affects the ability to comprehend and produce language, whether written or verbal. Approximately 80,000 people acquire aphasia each year, with men and women being equally affected. About 1 million people in the United States currently suffer from aphasia [9]. Recently, there have been new discoveries in the cognitive processes of language and the treatments for persons afflicted with aphasia.
The portions of the test gather both qualitative and quantitative data. One big difference is the evaluation scoring. The examiner uses clinical judgment to rate the presence and severity of impairments on a five-point scale (0 “normal,” 0.5 “questionable/very mild,” 1 “mild,” 2 “moderate,” and 3 “severe”) within thirteen specific domains of speech and language (Sapolsky et al., 2014, p. 4). The scores are meant to reflect the examinee’s current functioning level and to be used to compare results over time. The PASS helps monitor the new problems emerging too. It helps indicate the strengths and weaknesses at baseline and following evaluations. Another difference is the examinees are encouraged to use their most functional modality to respond to all questions. This allows the examiner to determine appropriate, compensatory, and adaptive strategies functional communication domains. PASS involves quantification of symptom severity using information for language test performance measures, as well as the judgment of the examiner. This is similar to many other Aphasia tests; however, the PASS correlates the severity and location of atrophy in regions important for functional communication. This tool can also be used as a systematic approach without a standardized assessment. (Sapolsky et al., 2014; Croot, 2014; Dickerson, 2011; Chapey,
Have you ever sat in your car and a old tune that you used to sing when you were younger pop up on your radio? You have not listened to the song in years, yet you still remember every word. And have you also ever noticed that teenagers are able to recite words from a rap song that they heard less than an hour ago better than a quote from a lesson that they at least hear once a day for a week. Some people would remember their favorite artists whole album before they even remember their own friends birthday. It's absolutely amazing. Even people with aphasia can be taught to sing although they can not speak. For any frequently musical individual, it is acknowledged that many songs have amazing effects on our emotion and beliefs. Music has many
There are two forms of apraxia of speech used to diagnose individuals. One is acquired apraxia, which can be diagnosed in all individuals, but most commonly in adults. Acquired apraxia of speech is often associated with strokes, traumatic brain injuries, brain tumors, and progressive neurological disorders. The second form of apraxia is considered developmental apraxia, also known as childhood apraxia of speech. This form of apraxia is present at birth, and is often diagnosed during early childhood. Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is described as a motor-speech disorder which results in impaired communication skills. Children diagnosed with apraxia of speech have difficulty producing sounds, syllables, and words. “Many children with CAS produce unintelligible speech, making verbal communication
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.
Aphasia is a language disorder that results from damage to portions of the brain that are responsible for language. For most people, these are parts of the left side (hemisphere) of the brain. Aphasia usually occurs suddenly, often as the result of a stroke or head injury, but it may also develop slowly, as in the case of a brain tumor. The disorder impairs the expression and understanding of language as well as reading and writing. “Aphasia may co-occur with speech disorders such as dysarthria or apraxia of speech, which also result from brain damage”. (Sarno 23)
She claims a “foolish, blemished Muse therefore sings” to her. One critic notes a discerning statement of psychotherapeutics once the writer compares herself to a male child. He writes, “the imagination of this textual matter suggests a profound envy for the a lot of obvious elements of the male anatomy, while not that the poet… feels inadequate for the task at hand…[and] no art will frame for this irreparable truth of nature.”