APHASIA: DEFINITIONS & TYPES QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS | APHASIA STUDY
GUIDE 2026/2027
Definition of Aphasia - ANS ✔✔An acquired communication disorder caused by brain damage,
characterized by an impairment of language modalities: speaking, listening, reading, and writing
Common Behaviors in Aphasia - ANS ✔✔Impaired auditory comprehension
Impaired oral expression of language
Paraphasia’s
Perseveration
Agrammatism and/or paragrammatism
Nonfluent speech or nonmeaningful fluent speech
Difficulty repeating words, phrases, and/or sentences
***Anomia***
Impaired reading ability (alexia) and/or impaired writing ability (agraphia)
Difficulty understanding and using gestures
Fluency - ANS ✔✔The ability to produce an uninterrupted, phrase or utterance of generally
more than 4 words
Non-fluent: can say fewer than 4 words without interruption
Prosody - ANS ✔✔The ability to vary intonation patterns, stress, and rhythm in connected
speech
Abilities will vary depending on the type/severity/individual, but typically have aprosodic
speech
, Auditory Comprehension - ANS ✔✔The ability to listen, process, and understand information
that is presented verbally
Anyone with aphasia has some breakdown with this
Automatic Speech - ANS ✔✔The ability to produce rote sequences, such as counting, naming
the days of the week, months of the year, and the alphabet
These are well rehearsed and typically do not require much thinking; might be more spared
compared to other areas
Verbal Repetition - ANS ✔✔The ability to repeat what someone else said from monosyllabic
words to complex sentences
Word Recall/Naming - ANS ✔✔The ability to name objects and pictures in structured tasks as
well as at the conversational level
Confrontation naming: present a picture and have them name it
**If a person does not display naming problems, they DO NOT have aphasia
Agrammatism - ANS ✔✔Non-fluent speech with absence of function words
Speech is primarily nouns and verbs (telegraphic)
"Boy eat cookie"
Paragrammatism - ANS ✔✔Fluent speech with inaccurate syntactic rule application
Incorrect subject-verb agreement and tense markers, inappropriate pronouns used, etc.
Not getting much meaning out of their message due to errors and misuse of words
Paraphasia - ANS ✔✔Aphasic speech often contains paraphasic errors due to:
Disruption at the lexical level for semantic paraphasias
Disruption at the phonological level for phonemic paraphasias
GUIDE 2026/2027
Definition of Aphasia - ANS ✔✔An acquired communication disorder caused by brain damage,
characterized by an impairment of language modalities: speaking, listening, reading, and writing
Common Behaviors in Aphasia - ANS ✔✔Impaired auditory comprehension
Impaired oral expression of language
Paraphasia’s
Perseveration
Agrammatism and/or paragrammatism
Nonfluent speech or nonmeaningful fluent speech
Difficulty repeating words, phrases, and/or sentences
***Anomia***
Impaired reading ability (alexia) and/or impaired writing ability (agraphia)
Difficulty understanding and using gestures
Fluency - ANS ✔✔The ability to produce an uninterrupted, phrase or utterance of generally
more than 4 words
Non-fluent: can say fewer than 4 words without interruption
Prosody - ANS ✔✔The ability to vary intonation patterns, stress, and rhythm in connected
speech
Abilities will vary depending on the type/severity/individual, but typically have aprosodic
speech
, Auditory Comprehension - ANS ✔✔The ability to listen, process, and understand information
that is presented verbally
Anyone with aphasia has some breakdown with this
Automatic Speech - ANS ✔✔The ability to produce rote sequences, such as counting, naming
the days of the week, months of the year, and the alphabet
These are well rehearsed and typically do not require much thinking; might be more spared
compared to other areas
Verbal Repetition - ANS ✔✔The ability to repeat what someone else said from monosyllabic
words to complex sentences
Word Recall/Naming - ANS ✔✔The ability to name objects and pictures in structured tasks as
well as at the conversational level
Confrontation naming: present a picture and have them name it
**If a person does not display naming problems, they DO NOT have aphasia
Agrammatism - ANS ✔✔Non-fluent speech with absence of function words
Speech is primarily nouns and verbs (telegraphic)
"Boy eat cookie"
Paragrammatism - ANS ✔✔Fluent speech with inaccurate syntactic rule application
Incorrect subject-verb agreement and tense markers, inappropriate pronouns used, etc.
Not getting much meaning out of their message due to errors and misuse of words
Paraphasia - ANS ✔✔Aphasic speech often contains paraphasic errors due to:
Disruption at the lexical level for semantic paraphasias
Disruption at the phonological level for phonemic paraphasias
