aphasia

/əˈfeɪʒ(i)ə/

/əˈfeɪʒə/

Other forms: aphasias

Aphasia is the inability to express or comprehend written or spoken words. If you can understand this sentence, you don't have it.

Aphasia is a medical condition caused by serious brain damage. However, you can also use it to dramatically exaggerate. If you don’t understand the scientific language in a biology textbook, you might feel like you’re suffering from aphasia.

Definitions of aphasia

1. noun

   inability to use or understand language (spoken or written) because of a brain lesion
   types:

   acoustic aphasia, auditory aphasia, word deafness

   an impairment in understanding spoken language that is not attributable to hearing loss

   associative aphasia, conduction aphasia

   aphasia in which the lesion is assumed to be in the association tracts connecting the various language centers in the brain; patient's have difficulty repeating a sentence just heard

   global aphasia, total aphasia

   loss of all ability to communicate

   Broca's aphasia, ataxic aphasia, expressive aphasia, motor aphasia, nonfluent aphasia

   aphasia in which expression by speech or writing is severely impaired

   amnesic aphasia, amnestic aphasia, anomia, anomic aphasia, nominal aphasia

   inability to name objects or to recognize written or spoken names of objects

   transcortical aphasia

   a general term for aphasia that results from lesions outside of Broca's area or Wernicke's area of the cerebral cortex

   alexia, visual aphasia, word blindness

   inability to perceive written words

   Wernicke's aphasia, fluent aphasia, impressive aphasia, receptive aphasia, sensory aphasia

   aphasia characterized by fluent but meaningless speech and severe impairment of the ability understand spoken or written words

   type of:

   brain disease, brain disorder, encephalopathy

   any disorder or disease of the brain