Aphasia :: Biology Essays Research Papers

AphasiaIn this world, humans and animals alike have come to communicate by using various mechanisms. Humans have modernistic themselves beyond other organisms by using style, or a set of codes and symbols, in order to express themselves to others. Language has brought about a means to constrain new thoughts, to explore, and to analyze our everyday surroundings. It has also enabled us to retain past memories and to look deep into the advances for the future. However, for some individuals, this tool for communication has been plagued by a language and speech disorders, such as aphasia. Aphasia is the loss of the ability to speak or understand speech or written language. It is often detected at an archean age, and contributes to the general class of speech and language disorders affecting 5% of school aged children (1) . Aphasia is classified into three categories. The main two are receptive or sensory aphasia and expressive or motor aphasia. Receptive aphasia affects the stimulant drug side and the ability to understand spoken or written language may be partially or totally lost (1) . Those with expressive aphasia can speak but not find certain words or names, or may be totally unable to communicate verbally or by writing (1) . For a majority of affected individuals, there is a combination of the two. The ternary type is conduction aphasia. This involves disruption of transmission between the sensory and motor ends of the circuit (1) . Here, individuals are able to produce speech despite the lack of connections to the input side. It seems that the ability to speak has a lot to do with your surroundings and how much emphasis was placed on developing this skill during the first few age after birth. Afterall, its known that the first few years are critical because this is the snip when the brain is plastic and is rapidly changing and being molded. By the time that adolescence is reached, the brain has become less plastic. In this paper, I would like to expl ore theories proposed to try to understand the origins of this impairment. Ongoing research has tried to pinpoint consider reasons as to why there is speech impairment for those with aphasia and other language disorders. Most theories suggest genetic and environmental implications. Is the speech disability some tell apart of defect from within the brain, or does the disability develop as a result of influence from your surroundings and lack of nurture from others?