Tedy Bruschi

aphasia brain New York speech

Lynn Johnston Honored by American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

Lynn Johnston, creator of For Better or For Worse, will be presented a 2007 Media Award by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association bringing attention to “Aphasia” a disorder often brought out as a result of a stroke or brain injury. In her comic feature, the grandfather character struggles to regain his speech after a stroke. The plot-line demonstrates the difficulties not only for the individual, but also the family and caregiver.

Language and the brain

Today I will explain the function of specific areas in the brain for language functions. The brain has two hemispheres, the right and the left, and Corpus Collosum, that connects the two hemispheres. The right hemisphere is about non-verbal sounds (among other things) and the left hemisphere is about language.

• Broca's area: it is about the speech production.
• Wernicke's area: it is about comprehension.
• Motor cortex: motor movements involved in speech production.

This localization view should be taken cautiously since there are a lot of intrincate connections in the brain, and damage to one area can have repercussions in another. There are some difficulties in language for production or processing:

• Tip-of-the-tongue (malapropisms): the speaker knows the word but it won't come to the surface.
• Slip-of-the-tongue (spoonerism): tangled expressions.
• Slip-of-the-ear: misunderstandings.
• Aphasia: it is an impairment of language function due to localized brain damage which leads to difficulty in understanding and/or producing linguistic forms. Two types of aphasia are: Broca's aphasia (reduced amount of speech, distorted articulation and slow, often effortful speech. Frequent omission of functional morphemes); Wernicke's aphasia (difficulty in auditory comprehension. Fluent speech but not much sense. Difficulty in finding the correct words).

It is an interesting field in linguistics so I must try to deal with this issue. To conclude this entry I will include an image of the brain and its differents parts.