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Receptive aphasia, also known as Wernicke's aphasia, fluent aphasia, or sensory aphasia in clinical neuropsychology and cognitive neuropsychology, is a type of aphasia often (but not always) caused by neurological damage to Wernicke's area in the brain (Brodman Area 22, in the posterior part of the superior temporal gyrus of the dominant hemisphere). This is not to be confused with Wernicke's encephalopathy or the Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. If Wernicke's area is damaged in the non-dominant hemisphere, the syndrome resulting will be sensory dysprosody - the lack of ability to perceive the pitch, rhythm, and emotional tone of speech.
Speech is preserved but language content is incorrect. This may vary from the insertion of a few incorrect or nonexistent words to a profuse outpouring of jargon. Rate, intonation and stress are normal. Substitutions of one word for another (e.g. "telephone" for "television") are common. Comprehension and repetition are poor.
Example:
- I called my mother on the television and did not understand the door. It was too breakfast, but they came from far to near. My mother is not too old for me to be young.
If excessive, this may be confused with the psychiatric signs of "pressure of speech" and "word salad".
Patients who recover from Wernicke's aphasia report that while aphasic they found the speech of others to be unintelligible, and even though they knew they were speaking, they could neither stop themselves nor understand what they had just said.
Receptive aphasia in popular culture
- "Failure to Communicate", an episode of FOX's medical television series House, M. D., featured a patient experiencing both receptive aphasia and agraphia. (The episode first aired on January 10, 2006.)
- Homsar, a character in the Homestar Runner cartoon series, is known to speak in an exaggerated form of receptive aphasia.
- In "Babel", an episode of Deep Space Nine, a virus causes this type of aphasia.
See also
"Receptive aphasia"