Conditions

Aphasia is a language disorder caused by damage to the parts of the brain responsible for language. It can cause difficulties with using speech, understanding speech, reading and writing. It can be caused by stroke, but also traumatic brain injury, tumours, or progressive neurological conditions.

Importantly, Aphasia is a language problem, not a thinking problem 

Dysarthria is a motor speech disorder. It results from impaired movement of the muscles used for speech production, (respiration, phonation, resonance, articulation, prosody), due to damage to the nervous system controlling those muscles.

There are many types of Dysarthria which depends on the area of the nervous system that has been affected

Unlike Aphasia, it’s not a language problem,  the person knows exactly what they want to say and can process language normally

Dyspraxia of Speech is a motor planning/programming disorder. The person knows what they want to say and their muscles aren’t weak (unlike Dysarthria), but the brain struggles to plan and sequence the precise, coordinated movements needed for speech.

Dysphagia is difficulty swallowing. It can affect a person’s ability to swallow food or fluids and even saliva.

There are different stages to swallowing and it can affect any stage of the swallow. This includes the oral stage where food is prepared for swallowing, the pharyngeal phase where a swallow is triggered or the laryngeal phase where the larynx moves to protect the airway.

Signs of dysphagia include coughing and / or choking when eating or drinking.

Cognitive Communication Disorder refers to communication difficulties that arise from an underlying cognitive impairment such as changes to memory, attention or processing. Changes to cognition can impact communication in many different ways.

It is not  a language impairment although language impairments may cooccur.