Broca's anyone?

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Being the information addict that I am, and being that my mom and neuropsych dismissed my current speech issues as being "just anxiety" or "in my head," I did some research. I sound JUST like someone with Broca's aphasia! A friend also brought it up and said that it's more common in people with ASD. My mom's calling my neurologist tomorrow to see about assessment.

I don't know how severe your speech impairment is. I'm nowhere at the level described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressive_aphasia but I do have slight difficulty with word ordering, finding the correct words to express myself in speech, using the wrong pronouns, omitting articles, etc. Therefore, I might have some mild impairment in Broca's area, but not to the level described here.

I pause and say "uhhh" a lot and shorten everything to just a few words. For example, when wanting to ask, "Do you think we should take the dog for a walk?" I said, "...walk.. uh... dog?"

Also, my frequent headbanging to the left-front side of my head might have done some damage... kinda makes sense.

Like the Wikipedia article MathGirl linked to said, Broca's aphasia is the OVERALL impairment of speech production, because Broca's area is the general speech production center of the brain. If you have Broca's aphasia, you cannot generate fluent speech whatsoever, not just in speaking but also in writing. You clearly are able to eloquently express your ideas through writing, so I would say that your speech issues may indeed be a result of anxiety or social problems from Asperger's. Clearly, your speech problems are not "in your head," and you should still consider seeking out speech therapy to help, but if you were a true Broca's aphasic, you could produce a laborious string of nouns, in both writing and speaking, and that's about it.

Not to highjack the thread but i think that the ums and uhs or like and u know are filler words that we say automatically to kinda let your brain and mouth catch up with each other.

I have no social anxiety whatsoever but I still have these speech problems. Even if I'm completely alone, I can't speak continuously in a fluent manner. So it probably is something that is at a neurological level. Maybe the problem with my speech results from how my mind echoes every single word being said, which blocks out my ability to think of the next word(s) I need to say.

Oh, I'm not discounting the possibility of an underlying neurological problem. I'm just saying that, if you can WRITE fluently, it can't be Broca's aphasia specifically.

You can definitely have Broca's and write fluently. Keep reading.

I've never read of any Broca's aphasics who didn't have total speech impairment, including writing. Please direct me to some case studies, as I would like to read more about them. Aphasia is not my area of neuroscientific expertise (my specialty is neuropsychiatric disorders), so I'll be the first to admit that I only know the standard/stereotypical/severe stroke-induced cases of Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia that I studied for my neuroscience degree in college. But it doesn't make much sense to me that somebody could think speech/words fluently enough to write down a long string of words if there was Broca's aphasia involved. Because it's not just a case of Broca's aphasia making the person unable to make the motor/tongue movements for speech. They also have a tendency to only come up with nouns. Have they found that another area of the brain is responsible for thinking/writing words other than Broca's and Wernicke's areas? Does the prefrontal cortex take over the role of Broca's/Wernicke's areas during thinking/cognition? If so, I haven't read about this development.

A quick search isn't showing where I read it... but I wouldn't make that up, it'd be dumb to (plus, I don't lie, at least not this well)... I know I read it somewhere last night.

That said, so maybe it's not Broca's. I don't really care what it is. I can't really speak. I SOUND like someone with Broca's, whatever it is. The words are in my head by the won't come out of my mouth.

Oh, no, I didn't think you were lying. I was just curious to read what you did. As for my opinion, I doubt that it's Broca's aphasia, just because most cases of that condition come from stroke or some other major cerebral injury. But I do think you should get checked out, to see if you can get help to try and speak easier.

Same here, though my speech deficits seem to also include word and sub-sentence omissions and sentence reversals along with sporadic semantic paraphasia (It thankfully doesn't manifest to as great of an extent online due to the ability to edit and there's ample time to think of the "right word".). I figured that it's probably related to deficiencies in the Broca's or Wernicke's area or something related. At the psychometric level (Going by Wechsler's terminology), it's probably related to verbal working memory and/or logical memory or possibly some more generalized form of memory.

Of course, I could be deluding myself, and my speech is within "normal variation".

Last edited by swbluto on 18 May 2011, 7:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.

OddDuck (I LOVE DUCKS... they crack me up!)... Anyway, does head hitting and banging count as head trauma? Because if it does, I experience head trauma daily.

SuperTrouper, oh, yes, absolutely. If you hit your head hard enough, it can definitely lead to brain trauma. So, if you headbang on a regular basis, there's a good chance that the headbanging could have led to your speech problems.

I would like to mention that each case is not the same, brain injury can be highly unpredictible and highly indiviudualized and even though trouper is able to write clearly does not mean mild Broca's is out of the question. Regardless, it is more than just anxiety, it sounds neurological to me.

Supertrouper....keep a pillow with you so you can bang your head on that to prevent further damage. You could end up knocking yourself into a coma, so try to find something soft before banging if really cant prevent doing that. I know what it is like to do self injurous behavior. I used to bang my head on the floor as a kid, and then quit that when I was 7 or 8 and went on to biting, scratching myself after that. I understand that sometimes it seems like it is beyond your control to stop, but try to delay it till you find something softer to hit your head on. Brain injury is serious buisness and do whatever you can to prevent further damage. The good news is the brain does heal...they used to think that it doesnt, but studies show that it does, but very slowly. So if you can prevent further damage, you will get better over time. Also you need to see a speech specialist.

Have an neuro appointment on Monday! Mom says "it's all in your head... you want neuro, you can call yourself!" Like I can call!! But I did... it was rather interesting. I tried to say "speech issues" early on so they would be patient, and they were.

I actually did pretty well yesterday, though. I would speak a handful of simple words rather fluently, but anything that wasn't a very simple word caused me to get stuck. But then today, the words are totally gone again. I can't speak at all, not even alone to the cat.