Aphasia affects an individual’s daily life in many ways – just think of what you’re doing right now – you’re reading this article, or you may even be reading it out loud to someone. If your language were impaired, you might not be able to read this page, a newspaper, or even signs on the street. You might not understand your friend on the phone when they call you. You might be in a meeting and just cannot come up with the words to say. It can feel very disorienting.
Aphasia presents on a spectrum – it can be somewhat mild (for example, constantly feeling like “the word is on the tip of your tongue”), or it can be very severe (for example, feeling like you’re in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language). Aphasia affects different systems, and it can be very isolated in terms of which language systems it impacts. It does not always affect comprehension and it does not always affect reading or writing, i.e, everyone is different, depending on what part of the brain was injured.
There are several important communication tips to use if you are communicating with aphasia, or communicating with someone who has aphasia.