Expressive aphasia

Not to be confused with receptive aphasia.
Expressive aphasia
Other namesBroca's aphasia, non-fluent aphasia, agrammatic aphasia
Broca and Wernicke are two areas involved in language formation
SpecialtyNeurology, Psychiatry

Expressive aphasia (also known as Broca's aphasia) is a type of aphasia characterized by partial loss of the ability to produce language (spoken, manual,[1] or written), although comprehension generally remains intact.[2] A person with expressive aphasia will exhibit effortful speech. Speech generally includes important content words but leaves out function words that have more grammatical significance than physical meaning, such as prepositions and articles.[3] This is known as "telegraphic speech". The person's intended message may still be understood, but their sentence will not be grammatically correct. In very severe forms of expressive aphasia, a person may only speak using single word utterances.[4][5] Typically, comprehension is mildly to moderately impaired in expressive aphasia due to difficulty understanding complex grammar.[4][5]

It is caused by acquired damage to the frontal regions of the brain, such as Broca's area.[6] Expressive aphasia contrasts with receptive aphasia, in which patients are able to speak in grammatical sentences that lack semantic significance and generally also have trouble with comprehension.[3][7] Expressive aphasia differs from dysarthria, which is typified by a patient's inability to properly move the muscles of the tongue and mouth to produce speech. Expressive aphasia also differs from apraxia of speech, which is a motor disorder characterized by an inability to create and sequence motor plans for conscious speech.[8]

  1. ^ Hicoka, Gregory (1 April 1998). "The neural organization of language: evidence from sign language aphasia". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2 (4): 129–136. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(98)01154-1. PMID 21227109. S2CID 7018568.
  2. ^ "Broca's Aphasia - National Aphasia Association". National Aphasia Association. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  3. ^ a b Fromkin, Victoria; Rodman, Robert; Hyams, Nina (2014). An Introduction to Language. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. pp. 464–465. ISBN 978-1133310686.
  4. ^ a b ASHA.org
  5. ^ a b "Common Classifications of Aphasia". American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Archived from the original on 2017-05-07. Retrieved 2024-02-21.
  6. ^ Purves, D. (2008). Neuroscience (fourth ed.). Sinauer Associates, Inc. ISBN 978-0-87893-742-4.
  7. ^ Nakai, Y; Jeong, JW; Brown, EC; Rothermel, R; Kojima, K; Kambara, T; Shah, A; Mittal, S; Sood, S; Asano, E (2017). "Three- and four-dimensional mapping of speech and language in patients with epilepsy". Brain. 140 (5): 1351–1370. doi:10.1093/brain/awx051. PMC 5405238. PMID 28334963.
  8. ^ Brookshire, Robert (2007). Introduction to Neurogenic Communication Disorders. St. Louis, MO: Mosby. ISBN 978-0323045315.