APHASIA EXAM QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS | APHASIA STUDY GUIDE & EXAM
PREP 2026/2027
Aphasia - ✔✔According to the book, "Aphasia is an acquired language impairment resulting
from a focal brain lesion in the absence of other cognitive, motor or sensory impairments. This
language impairment can be present in all language components, across all modalities and in
the output (expression) or input (comprehension) modes.
Stroke induced aphasia - ✔✔aphasia that results from a stroke, not gradual, one can improve
Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) - ✔✔Aphasia of insidious onset with gradual progression
and prolonged course without evidence on non-language-based impairments.
Progressive language deterioration for TWO years for no apparent reason WHILE cognition is
INTACT
Neurological workup shows no other causes for aphasia
Apraxia of speech (AOS) - ✔✔A neurogenic speech production disorder resulting from
impairment of the capacity to program the position of speech muscles, sequence speech muscle
movement to accurately produce phonemes
A problem PLANNING the motor movement
Dysarthria - ✔✔A problem of motor execution
Inconsistent errors
The role of cognition in the Resource Allocation theory - ✔✔Cognition is the umbrella of
cognition with attention, memory, perception, language and motor control as sub components
The role of cognition in the linguistic theory - ✔✔Cognition is a separate process from
Language systems
, How does the resource allocation theory explain aphasia - ✔✔erhaps aphasia is a non-
language-specific performance deficit
Two possible applications:
Person with aphasia has depleted attentional store
Person with aphasia can not allocate attention resources efficiently*
Advantages of RAT
Explains aphasic behavior in terms of a language accessing problem rather than a loss of
linguistic knowledge
Accounts for variability in aphasia
Accounts for stimulability in aphasia
•Does not rely of location of brain damage
•Does not rely on linguistic structure
How does the linguistic theory explain aphasia - ✔✔Support for Linguist deficit theory
Acknowledges comprehension problems of virtually all persons with aphasia
Based on a theory of changes in normal linguistic processing rather than a localizationist
perspective
De-emphasizes modality-specific language problem
How does the linguistic theory NOT explain aphasia - ✔✔Does not account for:
the tremendous variation among persons with aphasia
fluctuations in the individual performances of persons with aphasia
below normal performances by persons with aphasia on tasks using supposedly "intact"
linguistic processes
the stimulability of language performance in persons with aphasia
Does not support research suggesting that persons with aphasia have an accessing problem
rather than a gap in linguistic knowledge
PREP 2026/2027
Aphasia - ✔✔According to the book, "Aphasia is an acquired language impairment resulting
from a focal brain lesion in the absence of other cognitive, motor or sensory impairments. This
language impairment can be present in all language components, across all modalities and in
the output (expression) or input (comprehension) modes.
Stroke induced aphasia - ✔✔aphasia that results from a stroke, not gradual, one can improve
Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) - ✔✔Aphasia of insidious onset with gradual progression
and prolonged course without evidence on non-language-based impairments.
Progressive language deterioration for TWO years for no apparent reason WHILE cognition is
INTACT
Neurological workup shows no other causes for aphasia
Apraxia of speech (AOS) - ✔✔A neurogenic speech production disorder resulting from
impairment of the capacity to program the position of speech muscles, sequence speech muscle
movement to accurately produce phonemes
A problem PLANNING the motor movement
Dysarthria - ✔✔A problem of motor execution
Inconsistent errors
The role of cognition in the Resource Allocation theory - ✔✔Cognition is the umbrella of
cognition with attention, memory, perception, language and motor control as sub components
The role of cognition in the linguistic theory - ✔✔Cognition is a separate process from
Language systems
, How does the resource allocation theory explain aphasia - ✔✔erhaps aphasia is a non-
language-specific performance deficit
Two possible applications:
Person with aphasia has depleted attentional store
Person with aphasia can not allocate attention resources efficiently*
Advantages of RAT
Explains aphasic behavior in terms of a language accessing problem rather than a loss of
linguistic knowledge
Accounts for variability in aphasia
Accounts for stimulability in aphasia
•Does not rely of location of brain damage
•Does not rely on linguistic structure
How does the linguistic theory explain aphasia - ✔✔Support for Linguist deficit theory
Acknowledges comprehension problems of virtually all persons with aphasia
Based on a theory of changes in normal linguistic processing rather than a localizationist
perspective
De-emphasizes modality-specific language problem
How does the linguistic theory NOT explain aphasia - ✔✔Does not account for:
the tremendous variation among persons with aphasia
fluctuations in the individual performances of persons with aphasia
below normal performances by persons with aphasia on tasks using supposedly "intact"
linguistic processes
the stimulability of language performance in persons with aphasia
Does not support research suggesting that persons with aphasia have an accessing problem
rather than a gap in linguistic knowledge
