Broca's Aphasia Chapter Summary

2. Chapter 5 of the Ogden text describes the cases of Luke and Beth, two individuals who both were diagnosed with aphasia, whose cases and lives are extremely different. After introducing the reader to Luke and Beth, Ogden briefly describes aphasia and the most common types. She mentions the popular trend to not classify aphasia, but rather to describe the symptoms being exhibited. Broca’s aphasia is then described; this is most frequently associated with expressive aphasia and is characterized by the nonfluency of speech, language impairment, a patient’s right arm or hand going numb, and occasionally oral apraxia. Next, Wernicke’s aphasia is defined as a sensory, receptive aphasia. This type of aphasia is characterized by severe comprehension deficits that affects spoken and written language, the inability to understand what is said, but syntax is preserved which maintains a sense of normality. Other types of aphasia are also explored, as well as reading and writing deficits that can also occur. Luke’s case is then described, he is a young man who collapsed and experienced Broca’s aphasia due to his excessive drinking and multiple traumatic brain injuries. After an extensive hospital stay and rigorous speech …show more content…
Sacks describes that speech does not just consist of words alone, but also “utterances.” People with aphasia are sensitive to the tone and feeling of words and are able to grasp the expression or utterance that goes along with the spoken word. In this way whenever a group of individuals with aphasia might laugh at a President’s speech because they are able to grasp the utterances of what is truly communicated, when individuals with “normal” speech might be fooled by what is being said and not understand what is being