APPLYING LINGUISTICS TO SPEECH AND LANGUAGE THERAPY FOR APHASICS *

In the field of speech correction one of the most interesting and challenging problems is that of speech and language therapy for adult aphasics. Aphasia may be described as the impairment of speech and language functions of expression and/or comprehension. The individual may have partial o r complete loss of the ability t o use speech and language symbols and/or to understand speech and language symbols. Aphasia is the result of brain damage due to injury, disease, o r maldevelopment of the brain. Although direct help in regaining the use of speech and language is the p r imary concern of the speech therapist , other corollary problems must a lso be taken into consideration in total rehabilitation of the patient. These include physical, psychological, and emotional problems which have resulted from the original brain damage and the patient's reactions to his disabilities. If the r eade r is interested in a more detailed discussion of the many-faceted problems of the aphasic, he may refer to the writings of Joseph Wepman, Longerich and Bordeaux,2 and others in this field. This paper will be concerned only with the speech and language aspects. It is the purpose of this paper to outline suggestions for language therapy designed to present a practical approach to language retraining for aphasic individuals. It attempts to strengthen the weaknesses of other methods which have left the aphasic person with the ability t o use isolated words but the inability to