Speech, Language and Cognitive Training

A Speech-Language Pathologist treats any disorder that affects communication effectiveness. After having a stroke, a person may experience some degree of impairment in speech, language, and/or cognition. The following medical terms are used to describe these types of impairments:

APHASIA is the loss or impairment of speech and language. The patient experiences difficulty with the comprehension (understanding) and expression of language. Aphasia may affect a person's ability to produce spoken words, understand speech, read, and/or write. There are different types of aphasia depending on the location in the brain where the stroke occurred.

DYSARTHRIA is the term used to describe speech that is slurred, imprecise, slow, and/or monotone. Muscular control for speech is damaged in a person with dysarthria. It is common for the person to have weakness on one side of the face, lips, cheeks, and tongue when experiencing dysarthria following a stroke.

APRAXIA is another medical term used to describe an impairment in speech. Unlike dysarthria, there is no weakness of the muscles in the mouth. However, the "message" from the brain to the mouth is impaired and prevents proper sequencing of the muscle movements needed for production of speech sounds. For example, a patient may say "pease" for please or "tathoom" for "bathroom".

COGNITION refers to a person's thought processes or thinking skills. Cognitive problems which are common following some strokes include impairments in attention, memory, thought organization, reasoning, problem solving, and judgment.

It is also important to note that while we use these terms to describe specific impairments following a stroke, it is possible to have a combination of these impairments with varying degrees of severity depending on the location of the stroke in the brain, the size of the stroke, and various other factors.

At Baptist Health Rehabilitation Institute, the Speech Language Pathologists have the specialized training and experience to differentiate the various types of speech, language, and cognitive impairments and design an individualized treatment program to maximize the person's recovery.