Aphasia is an acquired communication disorder that impairs a person’s ability to process language but does NOT affect intelligence.
Aphasia impairs the ability to speak and understand others and most people with aphasia experience difficulty reading and writing. While aphasia is most often the result of stroke or brain injury, it can also occur in other neurological disorders, such as in the case of a brain tumor, migraines and neurodegenerative disorders.
Aphasia can be so severe as to make communication with the patient almost impossible, or it can be very mild. It may affect mainly a single aspect of language use, such as the ability to retrieve the names of objects, or the ability to put words together into sentences, or the ability to read. More commonly, however, multiple aspects of communication are impaired.
People with aphasia can improve over time and although there is no medical cure, speech-language treatment can help people with aphasia regain skills lost and learn compensatory strategies to help with communication challenges.
Many people with aphasia find aphasia support groups to be a place to share information and find an understanding community. More than 1 million Americans have aphasia and there are over 200,000 new cases each year yet most people have never heard of it!
You can help raise awareness during National Aphasia Awareness Month in June.
For more information on Aphasia, please visit www.aphasia.org
For more information about Speech-Language Therapy and Support Groups for those with aphasia and their loved ones, please visitwww.cfshc.org or call 86-686-3189
Central Florida Speech & Hearing Center
Stroke Support Group
Second Monday of the month @ 5:30pm
3020 Lakeland Highlands Road, Lakeland
