Definition

Noun: * A type of aphasia characterized by a severe impairment in the ability to produce spoken or written language. Individuals know what they want to say but have great difficulty forming words and sentences. Comprehension of language is typically relatively preserved.

Usage

• "Expressive aphasia" is a clinical, medical term used primarily in neurology, speech-language pathology, and related healthcare fields.
• It is often contrasted with , where comprehension is primarily impaired.
• It is also known by the eponym Broca's aphasia, named after the area of the brain (Broca's area) often associated with this condition.

Examples

• After the stroke, the patient was diagnosed with expressive aphasia, struggling to form complete sentences despite understanding questions clearly.
• Therapy for expressive aphasia often focuses on improving word retrieval and sentence construction.
• His expressive aphasia manifested as halting, effortful speech, often omitting small grammatical words.

Advanced Usage

• The term is used to describe the specific linguistic profile, not just any speech difficulty. Key features include agrammatism (lack of grammar) and anomia (word-finding difficulty) in the context of relatively intact comprehension.
• It can be a symptom of various neurological conditions affecting the frontal lobe of the brain, most commonly the left hemisphere.

Variants and Related Words

• Broca's aphasia: A synonym for expressive aphasia.
• Non-fluent aphasia: A descriptive term highlighting the halting, effortful speech output.
• Motor aphasia: An older term sometimes used synonymously.
• Aphasia (n.): The broader category of language disorders caused by brain damage.
• Anomia (n.): A primary symptom of expressive aphasia involving difficulty recalling names or words.

Synonyms

• Broca's aphasia
• Non-fluent aphasia
• Motor aphasia (less common)

Antonyms / Contrasted Terms

• Receptive aphasia (Wernicke's aphasia): Aphasia where comprehension is severely impaired, but speech production is fluent (though often nonsensical).
• Global aphasia: A severe impairment of both expressive and receptive language abilities.

Noun

1. aphasia in which expression by speech or writing is severely impaired