APHASIE

Abstract

The term aphasia is generally used to denote the clinical manifestation of disorganization of speech by a circumscribed brain lesion. French authors exclude from this definition anomalies of speech in dementia and schizophrenia and disorders of the development of speech in children. Modern linguistics has contributed much to our understanding of these pathological phenomena: a new area of research is developing, neurolinguistics, which studies the links between the anatomical and physiopathological, and the linguistic characteristics of aphasia. However, the main interest of aphasiology lies in the fact that new techniques or orthophonic rehabilitation in many cases alleviate the severe social and psychological handicap involved.