Aphasia Support Group

Aphasia is a loss or impairment of the ability to produce and/or comprehend language, due to brain damage. It is usually a result of damage to the language centres of the brain (like Broca's area). These areas are almost always located in the left hemisphere, and in most people this is where the ability to produce and comprehend language is found. However in a very small number of people language ability is found in the right hemisphere. Damage to these language areas can be caused by a stroke, traumatic brain injury or other head injury. Aphasia may also develop slowly, as in the case of a brain tumor. Depending on the area and extent of the damage, someone suffering from aphasia may be able to speak but not write, or vice versa, understand more complex sentences than he or she can produce, or display any of a wide variety of other deficiencies in reading, writing, and comprehension.