Aphasia and Stroke Therapy
What is Aphasia?
Aphasia is a language disorder caused by stroke or other brain injury or progressive brain disease. It can affect one or all components of language including speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
Luckily, our practice specializes in Aphasiology and evidence-based treatment approaches to treat aphasia and other communication disorders.
Providing the Specialized Care You Deserve
Common symptoms and areas targeted in therapy include the following:
Speaking
- Difficulty finding your words
- Using made-up words unintentionally
- Difficulty speaking in sentences
- Substituting sounds or words (e.g., “door” for “window”, or “tar” for “car”)
- Leaving out smaller words (e.g., the, is, as in “Let’s go to store”)
Listening
- Trouble understanding others in conversation
- Requiring more time to understand and respond to others
- Difficulty answering questions
- Challenges with understanding more complex and longer sentences
- Struggling to communicate in larger groups or noisy environments
Reading
- Difficulty reading words, sentences, and/or paragraphs
- Trouble with recognizing sight words
- Inability to sound out words that are written
- Difficulty understanding numbers or symbols, like those found on a clock or money
Writing
- Difficulty writing letters, words, numbers, or sentences
- Having trouble writing grammatically correct sentences
- Writing run-on sentences that don’t make sense
- Difficulty completing daily writing tasks such as; writing emails, text messages, checks
CHANGES IN SPEECH AFTER STROKE
Individuals may also experience changes in their speech after a stroke or brain injury.
Common symptoms include:
- Slurred or mumbled speech that is difficult to understand (also known as Dysarthria)
- Trouble getting the right sound out or distorting speech sounds in words (known as Apraxia of Speech)
- Too slow or fast rate of speech
- Substituting, distorting, or deleting speech sounds in words
- Having trouble with moving your tongue, lips, or jaw voluntarily, or having monotone pitch
- Reduced loudness
- Abnormal voice quality (e.g., hoarse, rough, breathy, strained voice)
Speech and Cognitive Therapy for Adults
If you identified any one or more of these symptoms in your own communication and want to improve, now is the perfect time to start working with a Speech Pathologist at Neuro Speech Therapy.
We believe that it is never too late to start working on your communication goals due to a fascinating thing our brain does called neuroplasticity! The brain can always change, make new connections, and make progress even years after a stroke or brain injury. At Neuro Speech Therapy, your goals are our goals, and with patience, care, and customized treatment, we will make sure to work with you on goals that are functional and most important to you.