Language is a tool that we use daily to communicate… But what happens when it is altered? Are we aware of what this entails? If we have a brain injury, a stroke, a traumatic brain injury, an infectious brain disease… it is possible that we develop some type of aphasia.
Within the aphasias, we find Broca’s aphasia, which is mainly characterized because spontaneous language is altered (it is not fluid). Furthermore, also implies another great symptom: paragrammatism In this article we will learn what exactly this consists of, its symptoms, its causes and possible treatments for it.
Paragrammatism, also called asyntaxia or telegraphic language, consists of an alteration of verbal expression (i.e., spoken language), which typically manifests itself in motor aphasias (also called Broca’s aphasias).
Its main symptom is the appearance, in the speaker’s speech, of syntactically disorganized sentences, together with the use of incorrect grammatical forms when structuring sentences.
Thus, it implies the appearance, in speech, of grammatical errors, and the use of an incorrect temporal mark in verbs. People with paragrammatism also use pronouns inappropriately. All of these failures occur in the context of a wide range of grammatical constructions.
In severe cases of paragrammatism, the patient’s speech becomes completely intelligible Thus, in these cases, jargaphasia also appears, which consists of a language disorder through which the person replaces appropriate words with unintelligible terms.
As we have seen, paragrammatism appears in Broca’s aphasia. Broca’s aphasia implies, at the brain level, that the third frontal gyrus is injured (i.e. Brodmann areas 44 and 45). The main symptoms of this type of aphasia, beyond paragrammatism, are:
Examples
To better understand this alteration, some examples of sentences from people with paragrammatism are: “I trust you a lot” or “On Thursday you fail, let’s go out to lunch with six friends.”
Symptoms
The main symptoms of paragrammatism are the following.
1. Errors in the order of words and sequences
The first symptom of paragrammatism is a sequence of errors that appear when ordering words and sequences, at a syntactic and/or morphological level
Thus, people with paragrammatism tend to replace the order of sentences with a set of phrases, which at first glance may seem well structured, but in reality they are not, since there is no coordination or logical connection between them.
2. Excessively long statements
Another symptom of paragrammatism is exaggerated length in the statements. In fact, This length is related to two other alterations: jargaphasia (already mentioned) and verbosity In this case, verbosity implies the excessive use of words when speaking, which can constitute a real alteration in the flow of language, at a quantitative level.
In addition, verbosity is accompanied by other symptoms, such as prolixity of speech, acceleration of speech and difficulties in being interrupted.
On the other hand, in the same statement that the person emits, various changes in the communicative thread may appear, which make their language incomprehensible.
Another symptom is the substitution of certain types of words for others; This occurs with function words or inflectional affixes. So, these are replaced by other words belonging to the same semantic field
Neologisms may also appear, with similarities to the functional word that is replaced. For their part, neologisms are “invented words”, as well as newly created expressions, within a language.
4. Difficulties in adapting sentences
Another symptom of this language alteration, also common, is a great difficulty in adapting the different phrases to the existing context
Causes
The main cause of paragrammatism is Broca’s aphasia, one of the existing types of aphasia. Aphasias are the loss of language function, and They originate from an organic lesion of the brain
There are multiple types of aphasias. In turn, the causes of aphasia can be various. Some of the most frequent are:
1. Traumatic brain injury (TBI)
One of the possible causes of aphasia, which in turn causes paragrammatism, is Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
A TBI consists of an injury often caused by a blow to the head, which involves brain damage; If this affectation covers the areas responsible for language, aphasia occurs.
2. Brain tumor
Brain tumors can also cause aphasia, if these put pressure on the area (or areas) of the brain responsible for language
Tumors can be primary (if they originate in the brain tissue itself), or produced by metastasis (which is when a malignant tumor has spread to another part of the body).
3. Cerebrovascular accident (CVA) or stroke
These occur when the blood supply to the brain is interrupted (or when it decreases), which means that the brain cannot oxygenate itself for a few seconds. What often happens is that certain groups of neurons die.
Strokes They can be hemorrhagic or ischemic It is estimated that approximately 40% of people who have suffered a stroke suffer from aphasia.
4. Infectious diseases
Infectious diseases can also cause aphasia, although they are usually temporary aphasia, since when the infection disappears, so does the aphasia. Examples of this type of diseases are: encephalitis, meningitis or brain abscesses
5. Degenerative diseases
Finally, degenerative diseases can also lead to aphasia and this, in turn, to paragrammatism. Examples of this type of disease are: Alzheimer’s, Pick… Aging is usually the cause of this type of disease.
Treatment
The treatment of paragrammatism involves the treatment of aphasia as a global condition. Mostly, it is decided to perform a neurorehabilitative treatment ; that is, cognitive rehabilitation, which involves a series of exercises, activities and tasks that allow you to work on language and communication.
On the other hand also speech therapy treatment is used to work on the affected areas due to aphasia, and in the case at hand, the alterations derived from paragrammatism.
Thus, exercises are used that allow, for example, working on sentence sequences at a morphological and syntactic level, which require ordering sentences, filling in missing gaps, discriminating sounds, etc.
Logically, each treatment will be personalized to the type of patient and injury.
