Language Flashcards
What is aphasia?
A broad term used clinically to describe language disorders.
What are the 5 key elements of language?
Phonemes - smallest unit of sound that makes a difference to meaning
Morpheme - smallest unit of language that has meaning. e.g. un-, -ing, -ish.
Semantics - meaning of words or sentences
Syntax - how words are combined to construct phrases and sentences
Grammar - all of the rules for usage of a language
What is paraphrasia?
Substitution for a word
Error in language
Phonemic paraphrasia - error in sound
Semantic paraphrasia - error in meaning
What is neologism?
an entirely novel word
What is nonfluent speech?
talking with considerable effort.
What are some collective signs of possible aphasia?
paraphasia
neologism
nonfluent speech
Where is Wernicke’s are located?
Temporal lobe
Where is Brocas area?
Frontal lobe
Who is patient Tan? what were their lesions?
This was one of Broca’s patients and had a lesion in the low region on the left frontal lobe. Due to this, there was a loss of speech, he could understand what people were saying but couldn’t say anything back but a few repeated utterances.
Also had lesions to sub-cortical regions and a history of epilepsy.
What was the phenomenon that Wernicke experienced in his patients?
Patients with lesions couldn’t comprehend what was being said, couldn’t understand, monitor or identify their own speech and could speak fluently but makes no sense.
What is Lichtheim’s house?
It is a proposed disconnection model of aphasia predicting different types of language based on the process disrupted.
In the Wernicke - ‘Geschwind’ model of language, what is the process that underpins speaking a word we hear?
- Process starts primary auditory cortex
Sound analysed and decoded passed to - Wernicke’s area
Sound information analysed determining the word that was said. - Transmission
Sounds transmitted via arcuate fasciculus (white matter sub-cortical tract). - Brocas area
Forms a motor plan to repeat the word and sends that information to - Primary motor cortex
Allows the muscles in the throat mouth and jaw to execute the motor plan - a word form that we recognise and then executed
What is ‘fluent’ or Wernicke’s aphasia and what is Wernicke’s area suggested to link?
Generally results from injury in the vicinity of Wernicke’s area in the left superior temporal cortex posterior to the primary auditory cortex.
This region has been suggested as the locus of memory for the constituent sounds of speech; linking the auditory representations of words with their meanings.
What is the consequence of damage to Brocas area?
We can understand what is said, but can’t activate the motor plan allowing us to speak
In the Wernicke - ‘Geschwind’ model of language, what is the process that underpins speaking a written word?
- The primary visual cortex analyses the image and transmits the information to angular gyrus.
- The angular gyrus decodes the image information to recognise the word and associate this visual form with the spoken form in Wernicke’s area
- The information about the word is transmitted via the arcuate fascicules to Broca’s area
- Broca’s area formulates motor plan to say the appropriate word and transmits that plan to motor cortex for implementation
- Primary motor cortex
allows the mouth to move.
what is Brocas Aphasia?
Injury in Broca’s area, the posterior part of the inferior frontal convolution in the left hemisphere (i.e., left inferior frontal lobe)
Lies anterior to primary motor cortex, meaning muscles used for speech are damaged.
Results in destruction of the memory traces of the movements required to produce speech.
What are all the symptoms of Brocas Aphasia?
Symptoms (i)
Slow, effortful, laborious speech
Telegraphic speech
Symptoms (ii)
Producing inappropriate phoneme or word
Saying the word pill instead of spill
Symptoms (ii)
Preservation - words they know, will be used more often.
Hemiplegia - partial paralysis of one side of the body (usually the right, because the lesion often extends to the nearby motor cortex in the left hemisphere
Insight intact
They know what they want to say but cannot get the words out
Symptoms (iv)
Language comprehension is intact. Can be fooled in syntactically dense questions. Have difficulty with nouns and propositions.
What are the symptoms of Wernickes aphasia?
Symptoms (i)
Impaired ability to comprehend speech, that of others and of patients themselves
Fluent, grammatical speech production without effort or distress. Speech retains the information pattern, rhythm, and pronunciation of normal speech
Jargon-like words make their speech difficult to interpret. Including paraphasia’s.
Semantic paraphasia’s - the individual makes an error
Symptoms (iii)
Talking around a word to convey meaning, rather than saying the word ‘someone who sweeps and clears, rather than cleaner’
Impaired ability to repeat words and sentences
Do not impair motor ability
Intact understanding of facial expressions
Often poor insight into language difficulties
What is conduction aphasia?
This is where both the Wernicke and Broca’s area is intact but there is damage to the subcortical link between the two, called the arcuate fasciculus.
This is where people have trouble with words that don’t have a visual association or words that are difficult to repeat when there isn’t an accurate representation of the word.
What is Auditory input in Lichtheims model?
this is where we activate and recognise the word form. Activation of decoded word is sent to the motor processes, activating the spoken word form.
What is the Motor input in Lichthems model?
known as Broca’s area; spoken word then triggers out put of speech of the mouth, tongue to produce the word
Where are people with disruption in Wernicke’s and Brocas area expected to find this in the Lichtheim’s house?
respectively,
Broca’s people have disruption in M
Wernicke’s people have disruption in A
What is the proposed B concept area in the Lichtheims model?
Where word associations might be. i.e. visual image that is associated with a word, perhaps meaning of the word, all in the concept area
People with conduction Aphasia, cannot send information via the arcuate fascicules, but they still have a pathway in tact between the auditory and concept area, activated word form may link to the concept area.
Hippopotamus, auditory and visual representation, image associated with word
People can go via this other pathway.
