You might have been diagnosed with aphasia by your speech pathologist, only to be diagnosed with dysphasia by another speech pathologist. You might be thinking... have I been given a new communication diagnosis? Has something changed or did the speech pathologist get it wrong?
Aphasia and dysphasia are commonly used diagnostic terms for language impairment.
These words have Greek origin:
Dysphasia
Dys: means disordered
Phasis: means utterance (spoken sound, word or statement)
Aphasia
Aphasia is a Greek word which means speechless
In the past, speech pathologists used different diagnostic terms to describe level of impairment. ‘Dys’ at the beginning of diagnostic terms refer to partial loss or mild to moderate impairment, and ‘a’ at the beginning of diagnostic terms refer to complete loss or severe impairment.
Area | Partial loss | Complete loss |
Speech articulation | Dysarthria | Anarthria |
Voice | Dysphonia | Aphonia |
Swallowing | Dysphagia | Aphagia |
Speech coordination | Dyspraxia | Apraxia |
Language | Dysphasia | Aphasia |
These diagnostic terms are confusing, right?!
People get these terms confused a lot! In particular, dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) and dysphasia (partial loss of language).
So, there has been a movement towards using terms that are somewhat less confusing.
Area | New term for partial AND complete loss |
Speech articulation | Dysarthria |
Voice | Dysphonia |
Swallowing | Dysphagia |
Speech coordination | Apraxia of speech |
Language | Aphasia |
Instead of using these older terms, many speech pathologists now use severity ratings such as mild, moderate and severe to indicate the degree of impairment. So, in the past, someone who would have been diagnosed as having mild dysphasia would now be referred to as having mild aphasia.
Some may argue that this is not staying true to the meaning of the word, the Greek origin of the word. But communication is about getting the message across accurately. So, if using the true terms to stay true to the Greek origin of the word impacts on our ability to communicate our diagnosis, then I say let’s not worry about word origins and move towards communicating our diagnosis in a way that is more understandable.
Some people still use the original terminology, so this may be why you have come across different terms, but it is becoming less common. Over time, these old terms will be phased out which will make things a little easier and hopefully a bit less confusing.
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