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Speech and language disorders

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

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There are several key terms that are crucial to the description of speech and language disorder:

  • dysphasia / aphasia, which is a disorder in the use of symbols whether, spoken, heard, written or read. It may be:
    • expressive:
      • usually the result of a lesion in the front of the lower end of the motor cortex: Broca's area
      • nominal: cannot find correct word - paraphrasias
      • and / or unable to pronounce polysyllabic words correctly.
      • language may be telegraphic and non-fluent
      • distressing to patient who is aware of condition
    • receptive:
    • usually due to lesions of Wernicke's area in the posterior superior temporal lobe
      • at its mildest, the patient cannot comprehend abstract concepts
      • more severely, speech is muddled by uncorrected mistakes due to a deficit of language analysis
  • dysarthria - a disorder of articulation
  • dysphonia - a disorder of vocalisation
  • dyslexia - this is the impairment of ability to comprehend written language

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