Jonathan M. Finkel
English Argument
December 8, 1995Introduction Aphasia and Literacy
Aphasia is a severe, acquired learning disorder caused by damage to certain focal points on the brain. It is characterized by deficiencies in speaking, reading, and writing. Obviously, aphasics may have horrible problems with literacy, such as confused speech, incoherent writing, and the inability to comprehend what he or she reads. However, it is possible to overcome aphasia; many victims have conquered their disability to become quite capable and functional in society.
For the purposes of this paper, I will use the common dictionary definition of literacy. According to The American Heritage College Dictionary, literacy is "the ability to read and write"(792). I chose this definition for its simplicity and for the fact that it is generally accepted so as to avoid confusion.
Aphasia and its effects
Aphasia covers a wide range of disorders, such as Wernicke's Aphasia and Amnesic-Semantic Aphasia. However, there is no universally accepted definition of it as there is more speculation than knowledge on the subject(Lesser 1). Different types of aphasia affect different aspects of one's speaking, reading, and/or writing. For example, Amnesic (or Anomic) Aphasia will leave a person's fluency in spontaneous speech, repetition, and comprehension intact, but it will vastly impair his or her ability to recall names(Lesser 16).
Goodglass gives another three examples of some of aphasia's manifestations: 1) A stroke victim has a minuscule vocabulary of nouns and verbs which are rarely used in sentences or phrases. He speaks with a considerable amount of effort but with clear pronunciation . He is perfectly capable of recalling the numbers up through twenty-one and the days of the week. He can follow a conversation but is confused by a change of subject. He is able to read and comprehend many words and simple sentences, but he cannot even write his own name. 2) Another stroke victim's speech is marked by effortless grammar and articulation, but he rarely completes his thoughts because he cannot recall the necessary vocabulary. He knows the words to hear but cannot repeat them. His comprehension of speech is nearly perfect. However, his writing is riddled with mistakes. 3) A third stroke victim could respond appropriately to greetings, but cannot answer routine questions concisely. His speech is incoherent, using words incorrectly and neologisms. Although he is attentive, he only appears to be capable of understanding fragments of questions. His answers to such questions are barely relevant. He has an incredibly difficult time connecting objects and their names. His writing is no different than his speech, disjointed and grammatically incorrect(1-2).
When aphasia impairs one's speech, his or her reading and writing are also impaired. One theory why this happens is that both reading and writing are primarily based on a pre-existing knowledge of speech. In other words, children initially learn to read and write by assigning written codes to the phonetic sounds which they have already learned. Therefore, when a person sustains brain damage and develops aphasia, thus impairing his or her speech, the speech deficiency then impairs one's ability to read and write, or level of literacy(Goodglass 154, 172).
Patients with a mild case of aphasia usually find that context and verbal prestimulation help facilitate comprehension while pictorial prestimulation actually hurts it. Mild aphasics are more susceptible to distractions than brain damaged non-aphasics (note that aphasia is caused by damage to certain parts of the brain) and normal subjects(Linebaugh 115). One of the predominant features of mild aphasia is anomia(Horner 134).
At the other end of the spectrum, severe aphasia is characterized by a notable reduction in the repertoire of language forms (reduced lexical dictionary or syntactic rules) and the loss of the ability to use for communicative interchange(Horner 134).
Overcoming the Disorder
Although it may seem as though this disorder cannot be conquered, there are some astounding success stories. People have been able to make the necessary adjustments in order to function rather sufficiently despite the disorder.
Kershner, Kirkpatrick, and McLaren studied a man (B.I.) who had a severe, though undocumented, case of Amnesic-Semantic Aphasia. This type of aphasia is characterized by "a disturbed understanding of the complex grammatical constructions of speech, dysfluent speech and writing, reading disability, visual-spatial confusion and poor auditory memory." However, people with this disorder have normal intelligence, normal auditory discrimination, normal articulation, normal speech reception, as well as relatively normal expressive vocabularies(Kershner 125).
Fortunately, B.I. has developed a set of devices to help him adjust in everyday life which also have helped him to conduct his business. As a result, he has become rather shrewd and successful business executive. For instance, his habit of asking questions during conversations slows things down so he can grasp things more easily, but, in business meetings, it also gives the impression of having a superior business sense(Kershner 125).
Conclusion
Therefore, while aphasia most definitely presents serious literacy problems to those who develop it. However, the disorder is conquerable. Victims such as B.I. have created their own devices to help them cope with, and even overcome, aphasia. In B.I.'s case, these devices may even lead to professional success. Of course, each and every case of aphasia is different. Therefore, the individual victims must derive his or her own aids in order to function in society.
Jon Finkel is a freshman at Carnegie Mellon University, in the school of Humanities and Social Sciences. Go to his home page. Please send comments to finkel+@andrew.cmu.eduClick here to return to the class's home page.