Peer Response – Module 6 Discussion 1: Language, Cognition, or Consciousness
INSTRUCTIONS: Respond to the following 2 classmates with feedback demonstrating your overall understanding of the concepts and clarifying or extending key ideas, claims, or arguments from their post.
Each response must be a min of 100 words. Also, be sure to include one peer-reviewed source for EACH reply.
CLASSMATE #1
Frederique, Keshia Lachae
Aphasia Language Disorder
Language disorder is a kind of communication disorder that may involve the context of language, the function of language, and the form of language in any communication in any combination. Aphasia is an example of a language disorder that is a s a result of damage to particular brain portions responsible for brain language. Symptoms of aphasia include speaking in incomplete or short sentences, speaking unrecognizable words, difficulty in finding words, difficulty in understanding other people’s conversation, writing sentences or speaking sentences which don’t make sense, difficulty in understanding what you read, and substituting one sound for another or one word for another (Basso & Cubelli, 2020).
During diagnosis of aphasia, most patients undergo computed tomography (CT) or a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to confirm the presence and precise location of a brain injury. A patient’s ability to produce and understand language such as answering questions, following commands, carrying on a conversation, and naming objects are also tested.
Aphasia is commonly caused by brain injury to the language areas of the brain. Stroke is a major cause of brain damage that occurs when a leaking, a blood clot, or burst vessels fail to flow blood to part of the brain. Brain cells die when they do not receive important nutrients and blood found in the blood. Brain damage can also be caused by brain tumors, brain infections, progressive neurological disorders, and gunshot wounds.
Language and speech therapy is a possible treatment of aphasia to supplement communication skills and rehabilitate language skills. Medications like donepezil, memantine, and galantamine can be used to treat aphasia. These drugs enhance the brain’s recovery ability, improve blood flow to the brain, or help replace depleted chemicals in the brain. Other treatments that help stimulate damaged brain cells include transcranial direct current stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation.
What I found most interesting about aphasia is that it does not affect one’s intelligence but only affects speech or even reading, writing, and comprehension. I also discovered that aphasia patients typically know whatever they want to say but lack knowledge on how to say it.
CLASSMATE #2
Inman, Hayley
Part One: A system of regions towards the back and middle of your brain helps you interpret languages. These regions include the angular gyrus in the parietal lobe, Wernicke’s area, which comprises mainly the top rear portion of the temporal lobe, insular cortex, basal ganglia and cerebellum (Nasios, et. al, 2019).The Broca’s area is an important part of language formulation. The angular gyrus assembles information to help us understand words and concepts (Nasios, et. al, 2019). Along with processing language, the insular cortex, which is located below the outer lobes of the cerebral cortex, is also responsible for motor control, emotion, and self-awareness (Nasios, et. al, 2019). Wernicke’s area works with the angular gyrus, insular cortex, and basal ganglia to process words and word sequences to determine the context and meaning (Nasios, et. al, 2019).
In the 1860s, independent reports by Paul Broca and Gustave Dax indicated that speech output processes, also known as articulated language, appeared to be left lateralized (Szaflarski, et. al, 2006). The left lateralization of language functioning was then extended to language comprehension by Wernicke, who showed a lesion in the superior left temporal lobe could be associated with a loss of what was known as speech-specific sound images (Szaflarski, et. al, 2006). The association of language functioning with the left hemisphere has been prevalent ever since these findings were reported (Szaflarski, et. al, 2006).
However, in one recent study, the brains of 24 students were scanned before and after a month-long intensive Mandarin program. The left hemisphere is undoubtedly important in language learning, Qi et. al (2019) stated, also noting that clinical research on individuals with speech disorders has indicated that the left side of the brain is in many ways the hub of language processing. However, according to Qi et. al (2019), during the early stages of language acquisition before people begin processing vocabulary and grammar, they first have to identify its basic sounds or phonological elements (Qi, et. al, 2019). The right side of the brain is key to distinguishing “acoustic details” of sounds (Qi, et. al, 2019). By scanning each participant’s brain with functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) at the beginning and end of the project, the scientists were able to see which part of the brain was most engaged while processing basic sound elements in Mandarin (Qi, et. al, 2019). To their surprise, they found that the right hemisphere in the most successful learners was most active in the early, sound-recognition stage, although, as expected, the left hemisphere showed a substantial increase of activation later in the learning process (Qi, et. al, 2019). The left hemisphere is known as the language-learning part of the brain, but it turns out that the right hemisphere is very important in processing foreign speech sounds at the beginning of learning (Qi, et. al, 2019).
Part Two: Dysnomia, which is often referred to as the “tip of the tongue phenomenon” (Maricle, 2011), is a learning disability that is marked by difficulty in recalling words, names, numbers, etc. from memory (Antonucci, et. al, 2008). It is a form of nominal aphasia, a term used to refer to conditions where people cannot remember specific words, but is a mild form (Antonucci, et. al, 2008). With dysnomia, individuals exhibit word finding difficulties characterized by word finding pauses, faulty word selection or the replacement of the word with a synonym in an attempt to express their thoughts without using the word they are having difficulty retrieving, as well as difficulty naming objects and recognizing objects by name (Maricle, 2011). One potential cause is a congenital condition. Patients with brain trauma like strokes and head injuries may experience memory problems, which often resolve on their own after a set period of time (Antonucci, et. al, 2008). Dysnomia can also be a symptom of a medical problem (Antonucci, et. al, 2008).
Functional neuroimaging studies of neurologically intact participants have demonstrated activation in the left posterior inferior temporal cortex (Brodmann Area 37) during picture-naming and verbal fluency tasks (Antonucci, et. al, 2008). Patients with greater right- than left-sided temporal lobe atrophy showed a more significant decline in naming and comprehension scores and predominantly produced semantic naming errors (Antonucci, et. al, 2008). Right temporal lobe damage may also play a critical role in producing a disproportionate impairment in recognizing the name of living things that are primarily differentiated on the basis of their visual/perceptual features (Antonucci, et. al, 2008). I found it really interesting how individuals with dysnomia may provide a detailed description of the word in question but are unable to recall its exact name (Antonucci, et. al, 2008). I also found it surprising that dysnomia is often misdiagnosed as expressive language disorder (Antonucci, et. al, 2008).
