Speech

Question 1

Broca’s aphasia is characterized by:

Answer 1

• slow, labored, nonfluent speech
• have difficulty saying function words e.g. a, the, some, in, about
• what they produce are content words nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs

Question 2

Damage restricted to Broca’s area does not produce syndrome, rather…

Answer 2

• damage must extend to surrounding frontal area and the underlying white matter
• damage to basal ganglia, especially head of the caudate also can produce Broca’s aphasia

Question 3

Frontal mediation of language - speech involves rapid movements of tongue, lips, and jaw - how does this relate to Broca’s area?

Answer 3

• it appears Broca’s area “contains” the motor programs of these movements
• Broca’s area is directly connected to the area of primary motor cortex that controls face and mouth movements used for speech

Question 4

Primary types of speech impairments in Broca’s

Answer 4

Agrammatism, anomia, articulation

Question 5

Agrammatism is

Answer 5

difficulty using grammatical constructions

• rarely use function words, auxiliaries or suffixes that form proper tense
• also have impaired comprehension of grammatical formulations

Question 6

Anomia

Answer 6

Word finding problems - common to all forms of phasia

Question 7

Articulation difficulties

Answer 7

Mispronounce words

Question 8

Do the Broca’s aphasia deficits vary?

Answer 8

Yes, in severity from patient to patient

Question 9

As a general rule, Broca’s aphasics are aware of their communication problems

Answer 9

that’s all, stop reading this card

Question 10

Hierarchy of speech from simple to complex

Answer 10

Articulation (sequencing indv. movements of speech [impairment is apraxia of speech])->naming (motor programs for individual words)->grammatical construction

Question 11

Brain mediation of deficits

Answer 11

• speech apraxia (i.e. articulation)
  a. all patients in a series with speech apraxia had lesion of insula
  b. none of the patients without speech apraxia had lesion of insula
  c. PET shows activation of L insula when saying words
  d. However, other functional imaging shows Broca’s area also activated during speech articulation