Conduction Aphasia

Synonyms

Associative aphasia

Short Description

Conduction aphasia is a subtype of fluent aphasia that is characterized by fluent speech and relatively intact language comprehension, but significantly impaired repetition. Utterance length is normal or increased, and speech has normal prosody and grammar and is produced with normal effort. There is a reduction in content words, paraphasic errors are common, and oral reading is impaired.

Categorization

Conduction aphasia is differentiated from other types of fluent aphasia (Wernicke’s aphasia, transcortical sensory aphasia, and anomic aphasia) by the disproportionate impairment in repetition relative to comprehension and spontaneous production. It is differentiated from Wernicke’s aphasia in particular by the patient’s awareness of his or her paraphasic errors.

Natural History, Prognostic Factors, and Outcomes

The prognosis for recovery of functional communication in individual with conduction aphasia depends on the underlying cause of...