A patient can produce fluent speech but has difficulty understanding spoken language describes which term?

• A. Aphasia
• B. Apraxia of speech
• C. Dysarthria
• D. Dysphonia

Answer: (A)

Language impairment after brain injury that leaves speech fluent but disrupts understanding is aphasia, specifically the receptive (Wernicke’s) type. In this pattern, the person can speak smoothly, but the meaning is hard to grasp and comprehension is impaired, reflecting damage to language-processing areas in the left hemisphere (often around Wernicke’s area). The other options describe different problems: apraxia of speech is trouble with planning and coordinating the motor movements for speech, so speech may be effortful or inconsistent even if language content is understood; dysarthria is a motor weakness issue that makes speech slurred or slow, with comprehension usually intact; dysphonia is a voice quality problem, affecting how speech sounds rather than understanding.