Synonyms
Definition
Broca’s aphasia is a speech and language syndrome caused by brain injury that is characterized by an impaired ability to speak fluently but with relatively intact language comprehension. In contrast, Wernicke’s aphasia is a syndrome characterized by difficulty in comprehending language, with relatively fluent speech that contains paraphasias and errors in word choice.
Introduction
Speech and language disorders arising from brain injury, known as “aphasia,” have long been recorded in human history. The terms “Broca’s” and “Wernicke’s” aphasia were named after two nineteenth century European neurologists, Pierre Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke, who carefully documented and characterized distinct aphasia syndromes. Broca was a French neurologist who was involved in a debate about the localization of the seat of human speech in the brain. A series of cases, including a famous patient “Tan” who could say...
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References
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Baldo, J.V., Dronkers, N.F. (2016). Broca’s and Wernicke’s Aphasia. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3343-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3343-1
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