DIFFERENCE BETWEEN APHASIA, DYSARTHRIA AND APRAXIA

Aphasia, Apraxia, Dysarthria and cognitive/communication impairment may occur following a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or can occur due to other neurological illnesses.

Aphasia: A person may experience difficulty understanding others (receptive language impairment) or difficulty expressing themselves (expressive language impairment.) There may be experiences with difficulty “getting the word out” or having the word “on the tip of the tongue” (word finding impairment). People may encounter difficulty reading and understanding printed material or have difficulty writing their name, letters, numbers.

This condition is almost always a symptom of another problem, such as a stroke or traumatic brain injury. It can also happen as a temporary effect of conditions like migraines. Aphasia is often treatable, especially when the underlying condition is treatable or can heal on its own.

Dysarthria: People with dysarthria experience “slurred” or “mumbled” speech due to limited lip, tongue and jaw movement. There may be changes in pitch, or vocal quality (there may be hoarseness or breathiness).

Apraxia: People with apraxia know what they want to say but have difficulty with the complex neurological coordination of the muscle movements required to say individual speech sounds. People with apraxia have difficulty producing and imitating speech sounds. The errors can include sound distortions, omissions, and substitutions and the error patterns are inconsistent.

What is the difference between aphasia vs. dysarthria, dysphasia or apraxia?

Aphasia is a condition that has a connection or an overlap with several other speech-related disorders and problems, such as dysarthria, dysphasia and apraxia.

• Aphasia: This is the overall term for a brain-connected problem with language abilities, including speaking or understanding other people speaking. Experts use this term for full or partial loss of language abilities.
• Dysphasia (dis-fay-zh-ah): This is an outdated term for partial loss of language abilities from a brain-related problem. Use of this term isn't common in most places. A major part of why it fell out of use is the risk of confusion with the term “dysphagia” (see below).
• Dysphagia (dis-fay-gee-uh): This is the medical term for a problem with swallowing. The ability to swallow relies on specific muscles to push food, liquid, medication, etc. down your throat. Dysphagia can happen with brain or nerve disorders or problems with the muscles themselves.
• Dysarthria: This is when you have trouble speaking because you can’t fully control parts of your mouth, face and upper respiratory system. This can make you speak too loudly or softly, at uneven speeds, mispronounce words, or have unusual changes in pitch (changing between high- or deep-sounding voices).
• Apraxia: This is a problem where you can’t do something even though you have learned how to do it or have done it before. An example would be suddenly not knowing how to use a key to open a locked door, even though you have no problem describing the action and still know how a lock and key work. People with apraxia often have trouble saying words correctly.