Broca’s Aphasia

The motor pattern concerning utterance, and grammar structures cannot be conducted to the motor cortex and thus the speech is impaired due to the fact that a lesion in the Broca area cuts the ties of this area with the motor cortex.

The patients with Broca’s aphasia are depressive and mournful. They have a tongue-tied speech. The patients with the severest Broca’s aphasia cannot even say “a” intentionally. They may unintentionally say things like “Oh my God!” but when someone says “Let’s go, say it again” the cannot say it.

Those having the lightest form can deliver non-fluent speeches. Their mouth constantly changes shape to gather 2-3 syllables, and it takes time. They talk with a smooth tone and in a robotic way. They have difficulty in uttering all the words.

It is possible to work with a mirror during the rehabilitation studies as they are not aware of the position of their mouths. They make plenty of literal paraphasia (jumbling of sounds within a word). They say “fwoler” instead of “flower” and leave it there; they don’t insist on correcting it.

They talk without using grammatical affixes like the telegram language. They try to tell what they have to say using the most common words (like nouns, objects). For instance, a patient who is asked about his wife’s whereabouts might say “Of, collect tea!” although he means to say, “She went to Of to collect tea.”

Patients with Broca’s aphasia may occasionally say a single word and use it whenever they want to tell something. For example, a patient, who is only able to say the word “I mean”, can repeat the same word like “I mean, I mean” for asking “How are you?”, or like “I mean, I mean, I mean” for saying “Give me water”.

In patients with Broca’s aphasia, repetition is impaired while comprehension is substantially preserved. Because the patient cannot make the sounds even though s/he understand what is told to her/him.

They make literal paraphasia (jumbling of sounds within a word) as the patients’ naming skills are also impaired. As their reading consists of one word, it cannot be fully considered as reading. They can match things. They cannot write. They cannot write with the other hand, and to top it all, they cannot even write their own names. They cannot make mathematical calculations.