If your friend was in a car accident and his brain was damaged how would you test for the following language function speech production-speech understanding-writing- reading?

Answer 1

Disorders of language functions known as aphasias, are presumed to have as their cause some form of damage to some specific site in the hemisphere where language is located. Such characteristic problems in spontaneous speech, as well as in the understanding of speech and writing.

Damage to the brain can occur from a variety of injuries and diseases. The brain damage can be localized as in a stroke or generalized as in infection. Symptoms and severity can vary greatly depending on the cause and location of the damage. The degree of brain damage that has occurred is usually assessed by testing various aspects of the neurological system.

After reading our book and searching in the internet, with asking one of the Speech and language pathologist I reached to…

If one was in a car accident and his brain was damaged first we will do a:

1-speech production test

utilizing picture-word relating. To examine the effect of speech production on picture naming, 2 treatment phases were compared-one that included relating pictures to heard words and another in which pictures were related to heard words accompanied by a video of the speaker's mouth presented on the computer screen. Another ex. Putting a fruits basket behind him and ask: where is the apple? , if he aimed to the right fruit I will ask him to take another kind of fruit and eat it, if everything is ok I will start the 2nd test.

2-Speech understanding test

test of speech understanding are usually indicative of left-brain impairment.

The primary test involve verbal skills. these include tests relating to understanding and expression of speech, as well as the use of speech symbols.

example; I show him pen, rubber, ruler..etc and ask him about the pen. What is this? If he answer: it's a pen, I ask what all of these? , if he answer: writing tools, I ask him what do you use it for? ….etc , by that way I will know his speech understanding. If he is ok, I will start making for him reading test.

3-Reading test

Reading test show the measurement of reading capacities in patients with brain damage.

First, I will give the patient a list of letters and he will reed, if everything is fine, I will give him a simple words, then complex words, short sentences, long sentences, the I give him a paragraph and see his abilities in reading. If everything good with him I will transfer to the last test which is the writing test.

4-Writing test

(SLC) Speech and language pathologists do this last test for their patient to know their abilities in writing , so to test them first I give him a dotted letters and he will match by himself, if his matching if write, I will ask him to write a different letters even in his second language, then I will spell a simple words to him and he will write, then a complex words, also I can put for him an incomplete words and he will complete it by himself, also I can ask him to write his full name as a sentence, then he will write a paragraph.

By these language functions test, we will know if the person who was in a car accident have a brain damaged or he is fine after this accident.

submitted by: hessa alkandari (Speech and language pathologist)

location: Kuwait city