IS IT ACQUIRED DEAF & DUMB ?

Aphasia is a language comprehension and formulation impairment most commonly caused by a cerebrovascular accident (CVA). It mainly affects the dominant hemisphere, as it rules the language department. It affects the language center for sensory and motor speech areas, named as Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area. The posterior part of superior temporal lobe which sits the Wernicke’s area is lesioned and Broca’s aphasia is produced by large lesions in superior division of left middle cerebral territory.

Specific aphasia syndromes are dependent on the location of the lesion in the brain. Fluent aphasia, in which an individual can speak in sentences that almost sounds normal but it is filled with self-formed words or words with sounds that are incorrect. The sentence structure formation is intact but inability to make meaningful sentences due to semantic difficulty. Writing is preserved in them but may be non-sensical due to lack of comprehension.

In non-fluent aphasia, one will be unable to form long sentences and eventually shorts out the sentences. Comprehension and reading are intact but writing and naming are severely affected. Naming is also severely affected in sensory aphasia.

Patients with motor aphasia are aware of their deficiency in language which leads to agitation unlike sensory aphasic patients who are unaware of the fact. There are various types of aphasia- conduction aphasia, transcortical sensory aphasia, transcortical motor aphasia, mixed transcortical aphasia and global aphasia.