Question:

I wanted first establish what is aphasia and then answer my main question: how one recognize aphasia in children who do not speak yet. First off, there is confusion about what is the difference between aphasia and dysphasia. Then if I want to focus on children I found out that there are 2 common phrases which I think I should pursue: "congenital aphasia" and "developmental aphasia", since small children can both have aphasia from birth (genetically?) or acquire throughout their (short) life by injury or otherwise (tumors, infections,etc) (is that right?). And also, what is the best word which generalized aphasia/dysphasia?: From what I read I think aphasia is a "wrong wiring in the brain" which is related to speech/symbolic processing. I think that I could generalized it like this. A mental disorder is "some wrong wiring in a brain". And aphasia is a specific type of mental disorder which is related to the language processing as described in the previous paragraph. And I think I see also that one should distinguish between aphasia and other speech disorders like dysarthria and apraxia which have to do with coordination of speech. So they are not directly involved in symbolic/language processing. Right?

Answer:

Aphasia is very different from motor speech and motor disorders such as dysarthria and apraxia. Aphasics often have Dysarthria and or apraxia, depending upoon the severity, location, and cause of their injuries. Aphasia is an impairment in one's ability to formulate, organize, and or express thoughts and feelings. The aphasia can be fluent or nonfluent. Dysphasia- from what I know is an old term for aphasia. It is hard to say whether or not Children who have sustained head injuries or strokes prior to birth can have aphasia. Many conditions and factors must be examined. Aphasia is a loss of language and or speech abilities. If a child has not developed language, how can he loose it? A more appropriate term may simply be "language disordered" or speech / language impairment secondary to brain injury or developmental disorder. A normally developing child who has been expoused to language but does not speak yet can indeed acquire aphasia. Because they have already started learning language receptively and are preparing for language expression, any trauma or brain attack can interrupt this development and cause aphasic symptoms.

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