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National Aphasia Awareness Month

National Aphasia Awareness Month is a national campaign to increase public education and to recognize the numerous people who care for people with aphasia.

Did you know that two million people in the United States have aphasia, but a stunning 84.5% of Americans state that they’ve never even heard the term ‘aphasia’?

Aphasia is a language disorder that can bring about a lot of speech and language problems that may sometimes be treated through hard work and speech therapy. The kind of speech and language problems brought by aphasia depends on the kind of aphasia diagnosis. Here are three common types of aphasia:

Broca’s Aphasia: Broca’s Aphasia is also known as motor aphasia. This type occurs when the brain’s frontal lobe gets damaged, particularly on language-dominant side. Individuals may experience complete mutism or be unable to speak. In some cases, individuals may be able to utter single-word statements or a full sentence, but constructing such would require great effort.

Wernicke’s Aphasia: Occurs when the brain’s language-dominant area’s temporal lobe is damaged. Individuals who have this kind of aphasia, may speak in uninterrupted, long, sentences; the catch is, the large amount of words are usually unnecessary or at times made-up.

Global Aphasia: This kind of aphasia occurs when there is widespread damage on language areas of brain’s left hemisphere. Consequently, all an individual’s fundamental language functions are affected, yet don’t affect motor skills. Other symptoms include weakness and numbness on the right side of the body.

One key area of coping with aphasia is finding and participating in any of the 600 aphasia support groups in the United States, which feature people ready to help and support those with aphasia. Research shows such support groups are known to help people with aphasia by offering tips, guidance, and emotional support.