APHASIA MIDTERM EXAM 2026/2027 | COMPLETE STUDY GUIDE, KEY CONCEPTS & PRACTICE
QUESTIONS
5 Expectations - ✔✔•Learn to ask good questions
•Learn to ask the dumb questions anyway, even if they make you feel like an idiot
•Learn to work for the answers to your questions - OR -
•Learn to wait for someone to help you answer your question(s).
•Use the answers to your questions to become a better clinician every single day
National Aphasia Association Definition - ✔✔"Aphasia is an impairment of language, affecting
the production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write. Aphasia is always
due to injury to the brain-most commonly from a stroke, particularly in older individuals. But
brain injuries resulting in aphasia may also arise from head trauma, from brain tumors, or
infections."
American Heart Association Definition - ✔✔"Aphasia is a language disorder that affects the
ability to communicate. It's most often caused by strokes that occur in areas of the brain
(usually in the left side of the brain) that control speech and language. Aphasia does not affect
intelligence. Stroke survivors remain mentally alert, even though their speech may be jumbled,
fragmented or impossible to understand."
General symptoms of aphasia - ✔✔•fluency
•auditory comprehension
•repetition
•naming/word-finding
•reading
•writing
•gestures
•bilingual impairment (native/used most often more intact)
, List 5 characteristics of aphasic speech - ✔✔1. Speak either with some struggle or abundantly
with ease but without much meaning or grammar.
2. When they begin to speak, most cannot find the words at all or the right words, resulting in a
slow rate
3. May substitute sounds or words and create new words that do not mean anything to the
listener
4. May omit sounds within words or whole words
5. Limited range and variety of vocabulary
6. May use wrong word order
Clinical/Classical - ✔✔-co-anatomical correlations (left brain=language, anterior lesion=non-
fluent aphasia, etc.)
-Each part of the brain does something specific
Contemporary - ✔✔-widespread involvement of the brain in most language activities
-Certain areas work in certain ways but the entire brain has to synthesize that information
together, don't isolate each part of the brain like the classical method states
Central Nervous System (CNS) - ✔✔•Includes brain (gray and white matter, brain stem,
cerebellum) and spinal cord.
•Brain is the size of a grapefruit (3lbs in men, 2lbs 12oz in women) and is composed of billions
of neurons plus supporting cells
•Spinal Cord carries neural impulses from the periphery of the brain to produce responses. The
spinal cord is composed of 31 pairs of spinal nerves.
•The degree of motor response can be altered by the CNS---this must be kept in mind when
interpreting clinical exam of a patient
Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) - ✔✔•Cranial Nerves and spinal nerves
QUESTIONS
5 Expectations - ✔✔•Learn to ask good questions
•Learn to ask the dumb questions anyway, even if they make you feel like an idiot
•Learn to work for the answers to your questions - OR -
•Learn to wait for someone to help you answer your question(s).
•Use the answers to your questions to become a better clinician every single day
National Aphasia Association Definition - ✔✔"Aphasia is an impairment of language, affecting
the production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write. Aphasia is always
due to injury to the brain-most commonly from a stroke, particularly in older individuals. But
brain injuries resulting in aphasia may also arise from head trauma, from brain tumors, or
infections."
American Heart Association Definition - ✔✔"Aphasia is a language disorder that affects the
ability to communicate. It's most often caused by strokes that occur in areas of the brain
(usually in the left side of the brain) that control speech and language. Aphasia does not affect
intelligence. Stroke survivors remain mentally alert, even though their speech may be jumbled,
fragmented or impossible to understand."
General symptoms of aphasia - ✔✔•fluency
•auditory comprehension
•repetition
•naming/word-finding
•reading
•writing
•gestures
•bilingual impairment (native/used most often more intact)
, List 5 characteristics of aphasic speech - ✔✔1. Speak either with some struggle or abundantly
with ease but without much meaning or grammar.
2. When they begin to speak, most cannot find the words at all or the right words, resulting in a
slow rate
3. May substitute sounds or words and create new words that do not mean anything to the
listener
4. May omit sounds within words or whole words
5. Limited range and variety of vocabulary
6. May use wrong word order
Clinical/Classical - ✔✔-co-anatomical correlations (left brain=language, anterior lesion=non-
fluent aphasia, etc.)
-Each part of the brain does something specific
Contemporary - ✔✔-widespread involvement of the brain in most language activities
-Certain areas work in certain ways but the entire brain has to synthesize that information
together, don't isolate each part of the brain like the classical method states
Central Nervous System (CNS) - ✔✔•Includes brain (gray and white matter, brain stem,
cerebellum) and spinal cord.
•Brain is the size of a grapefruit (3lbs in men, 2lbs 12oz in women) and is composed of billions
of neurons plus supporting cells
•Spinal Cord carries neural impulses from the periphery of the brain to produce responses. The
spinal cord is composed of 31 pairs of spinal nerves.
•The degree of motor response can be altered by the CNS---this must be kept in mind when
interpreting clinical exam of a patient
Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) - ✔✔•Cranial Nerves and spinal nerves
