Broca’s Aphasia
What Is It?
A non-fluent aphasia characterized by slow, effortful speech and difficulty with grammar (agrammatism). Patients typically understand language well but struggle to express themselves.
So What Does That Look Like?
Broca's aphasia primarily affects speech production. People with Broca's aphasia typically understand what others say to them much better than they can speak.
Language Skills Affected
Grammar Usage, Speech Fluency, Word Finding/Retrieval
Key Characteristics
- Speech pattern: Slow, effortful speech with short, simplified phrases ("telegraphic speech")
- Word-finding: Difficulty producing the right words, especially verbs and function words (like "the," "and," "of")
- Grammar: Often omit small grammatical words and endings
- Comprehension: Usually good understanding of everyday conversation
- Awareness: Typically aware of their errors and may become frustrated
How It Impact's Daily Life
People with Broca's aphasia often know what they want to say but struggle to produce the words. They may use key nouns but leave out connecting words (e.g., "Coffee... cup... table" instead of "The coffee is in the cup on the table").
Treatment Approaches & Exercises That May Help
Semantic Feature Analysis (SFA),
Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST),
Melodic Intonation Therapy,
Script training for everyday situations