Constraints and Repairs in Aphasic Speech: A Group Study

Abstract

Aphasia refers to an impairment of language processing resulting from brain damage. A very common symptom observed in aphasic speech is the presence of phonemic paraphasias, i.e., phonemic errors involving the substitution, addition or syncope of one (or more) segment(s) in a word stimulus. Phonemic paraphasias can be found across multiple tasks (repetition, reading aloud, spontaneous speech, picture naming) that require a subject to produce a word sound. They are not specific to a particular type of aphasia since Broca’s aphasics, Wernicke’s aphasics, conduction aphasics, and mixed aphasics all produce phonemic paraphasias (see Lecours et al 1983).