Lecture 18- Language

Question 1

What is lateralization?

Answer 1

Verbal behaviour is lateralized in the brain.
Most language disturbances occur after damage to the left side of the brain, regardless if they are left-handed or right-handed.

Question 2

Which hemisphere is speech dominant in 90% of the population?

Answer 2

Left hemisphere

Question 3

True or false?

Right hemisphere speech dominance is seen in 4% of right-handed people and 27% of left-handed people.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

What does prosody means when talking about language?

Answer 4

It’s the rhythm, tone and emphasis in speech.
Prosody is typically a function of the right hemisphere, so people who have damage to the left hemisphere who cannot understand language can still understand prosody.

Question 5

Name the agnosia:
- Disorder where people have great difficulty recognizing voices. It results from localized brain damage to the right superior temporal cortex.

Answer 5

Phonagnosia

Question 6

What are the functions of the right hemisphere in language?

Answer 6

1) prosody : tone, rhythm, emphasis in language
2) Recognizing someone by their voice.
3) the comprehension of metaphors

Question 7

What is an aphasia?

Answer 7

It refers to a disturbance in understanding, repeating or producing meaningful speech.
- Must not simply be caused by sensory or motor deficits or by lack of motivation.
- Must be relatively isolated
- Patient must recognize that others are trying to communicate with them. Must be somewhat aware of what is happening around them

Question 8

Damage to sensory association cortex causes deficits in understanding language. The aphasia may be described as?

Answer 8

• Posterior aphasia
• Sensory aphasia
• Receptive aphasia
• Wernicke’s aphasia
• Fluent aphasia

Question 9

Damage to the frontal lobe causes deficits in speaking. The aphasia may be described as?

Answer 9

• Anterior aphasia
• Motor aphasia
• Expressive aphasia
• Broca’s aphasia
• Non-fluent aphasia

Question 10

What is included in the comprehension of a word?

Answer 10

Vision -What do dogs look like?
Auditory - What do dogs sound like?
Touch - What do dogs feel like?
Olfaction - What do dogs smell like?
Gustatory - What do dogs taste like?
Motor - How do dogs act? What does petting a dog entail?

Question 11

Which areas, in order, are activated in language?

Answer 11

1) Primary sensory areas (first process sensory input)
2) Association cortex to make sense of the sensory input
3) Wernicke’s area in the perception of the word (Auditory)
4) Speaking words is located in Broca’s area
5) language comprehension —> posterior language area

Question 12

Which area is activated in the perception of a spoken word?

Answer 12

Wernicke’s area

Question 13

Which area is activated when speaking a word?

Answer 13

Broca’s area

Question 14

Which area of the brain is activated in language comprehension?

Answer 14

Posterior language area

Question 15

What does damage to the posterior language area do?

Answer 15

People can’t seem to understand the meaning of words anymore.
Ex: the concept of a dog is still known to them but the written or spoken word DOG will not be recognized by them.

Question 16

What does the posterior language area do?

Answer 16

• It is critical for language comprehension.
• Neurons there activate the ensemble of neurons throughout sensory association cortices that store the representation (meanings) of specific words.

Question 17

Where is the posterior language area located?

Answer 17

At the junction of the temporal, occipital and parietal lobes, around the posterior end of the lateral fissure.

Question 18

What is Transcortical Sensory Aphasia?

Answer 18

• Damage to and around the posterior language area
• Failure to comprehend the meaning of words and an inability to express thoughts with meaningful speech.
• Word perception and speaking might be fine (without any comprehension of what is spoken)
• Can repeat words, read out loud without understanding and write with no understanding.

They can speak fluently (frontal lobe is fine), but they can’t comprehend what is said. They can repeat after you.

Question 19

What is conduction aphasia?

Answer 19

-Really small aphasia
- Characterized by an inability to repeat the exact words you hear.
- Other than that, language is totally fine.
- Caused by damage to and around the arcuate fasciculus

Question 20

Which part of the brain results in conduction aphasia?

Answer 20

Damage to the connection between Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area known as the arcuate fasciculus.

Question 21

What does Wernicke’s area do in regards to language?

Answer 21

It is involved in the analysis of speech sounds and in recognition of spoken words. It’s the region of auditory association cortex on the left temporal lobe of humans

Question 22

What is pure word deafness?

Answer 22

• REsults from damage to a small part of Wernicke’s area.
• Disorder of auditory word recognition. Inability to comprehend or repeat spoken words.

“I can hear you, but I don’t recognize the words you are saying. I have trouble repeating what you’re saying” .

-They can hear and recognize other sounds like a doorbell. They could read lips and they can speak fluently. Over time, their speech becomes awkward like a deaf person speaking.

Question 23

What is Wernicke’s aphasia?

Answer 23

Results from damage to both Wernicke’s area and the Posterior language area —> features of transcortical sensory aphasia and pure word deafness.
- Poor language comprehension. Fluent speech production, but no meaning to what they say.
- Will never repeat what you just said.
- They are not typically aware of this problem and do not show must frustration to their problem.
- Also called receptive aphasia and fluent aphasia.

Question 24

What is the main difference between transcortical sensory aphasia and Wernicke’s aphasia?

Answer 24

Wernicke’s aphasia cannot repeat what people just said to them and cannot recognize proven words while people with transcortical sensory aphasia can do those things.

Question 25

Which area is responsible for seeing and perceiving written words?

Answer 25

Visual Word Form Area (VWFA)
- Situated in the fusiform gyrus of the left hemisphere

Question 26

What is pure alexia?

Answer 26

Disorder of reading caused by damage to the visual word-form area that disrupts the ability to perceive written words.
- Cannot read, however, they can write just fine. They just can’t read what they write.

Question 27

What is dyslexia?

Answer 27

-Faulty reading
- Difficulty reading words

Question 28

What is whole-word reading?

Answer 28

Reading by recognizing a word as a whole: “sight reading”

Question 29

What is phonetic reading?

Answer 29

• Reading by decoding the phonetic significance of letter strings: “sound reading”

Question 30

What is surface dyslexia?

Answer 30

An inability to recognize whole-words. The person can read words phonetically.
- Irregularly spelled words are difficult for these people to perceive, because sounding them out doesn’t work.
Ex: pair, pear, pare…

Question 31

What is phonological dyslexia?

Answer 31

Reading disorder in which a person can read familiar words but has difficulty reading unfamiliar words or no words.
They can recognize words with whole-word recognition but since they have no entry for new unfamiliar words, they cannot read them out loud.

Question 32

What is developmental dyslexia?

Answer 32

Mostly a type of phonological dyslexia, but it’s very genetic disorder.
- Difficulty learning to read and some never become fluent readers, even though they are otherwise intelligent.
- Trouble with gramma and spelling and have a hard time distinguishing the other of sound sequences.

Question 33

What is direct dyslexia?

Answer 33

You can read out loud, but you can’t understand what you are reading.
- Inability to extract meaning from written words even though they can read it out loud.
- Typically seen with larger deficits, like transcortical sensory aphasia, etc.

Question 34

What is Broca’s aphasia?

Answer 34

• They can totally understand language, but they cannot speak it.
• They are very frustrated with their condition because they have something to say, but they cannot express it.
• Results from strokes and damage to Broca’s area

Question 35

What does damage to the Broca’s area cause?

Answer 35

Damage to the Broca’s area in the left inferior frontal lobe makes it difficult for patients to express themselves verbally.
- Slow, laborious, nonfluent speech.

Question 36

Broca’s aphasia encompasses three semi-distinct issues. What are they?

Answer 36

Articulation problems

Agrammatism
- difficulty with grammar

Anomia
- difficulty finding the right word

Question 37

What are articulation problems for a person with Broca’s aphasia?

Answer 37

Movement of the tongue, lips, jaw and other speech organs to make speech sounds are awkward and malfunction.
- Might make it hard for someone to hear the word they are saying. Or it can cause a sequencing problem : Lipstick —> likstip.

Question 38

What is agrammatism for someone with Broca’s aphasia?

Answer 38

They don’t use grammatical devices or word order.
- They typically do not derive meaning from the sequence of words or the grammar of sentences.
- Almost exclusively use content nouns without any function words.

Question 39

Name the disorder:
- Difficulty in finding (remembering) the appropriate word to describe object, action or attribute.
- Symptom of Broca’s aphasia

Answer 39

Anomia

Question 40

Name the disorder:
- Have a hard time thinking of the word they want to say. They can understand what other people say just fine. They basically talk just fine, but they often describe things in roundabout ways (circumlocution).

Answer 40

Anomia aphasia