Receptive Aphasia - Luria's Theory On Wernicke's Aphasia

Luria's Theory On Wernicke's Aphasia

Luria proposed that this type of aphasia has three characteristics.

• 1) A deficit in the categorization of sounds. In order to hear and understand what is said, one must be able to recognize the different sounds of spoken language. For example, hearing the difference between bad and bed is easy for native English speakers. The Dutch language however, makes a much greater difference in pronunciation between these vowels, and therefore the Dutch have difficulties hearing the difference between them in English pronunciation. This problem is exactly what patients with Wernicke’s aphasia have in their own language: they can't isolate significant sound characteristics and classify them into known meaningful systems.

• 2) A defect in speech. A patient with Wernicke's aphasia can and may speak a great deal, but he or she confuses sound characteristics, producing “word salad” in extreme cases: intelligible words that appear to be strung together randomly.

• 3) An impairment in writing. A person who cannot discern sounds cannot be expected to write.