Symptom 5: Verbal Paraphasia
Verbal paraphasia is another symptom that disrupts the speech patterns of those with conduction aphasia. This involves substituting one word for another, often replacing a desired word with a different one that bears a semantic relation.
This could mean substituting “dog” for “cat,” or “knife” for “fork.” Both instances involve a switch between words that share a similar context or category. While these substitutions may not significantly impact the general idea of the conversation, they can certainly cause confusion and miscommunication.
Interestingly, the substituted words are often related to the intended ones, either in terms of their meaning or their use. This suggests that the semantic network of language, or the connections between related words and ideas, is not completely lost in conduction aphasia. However, accessing the correct word within this network seems to be a challenge.(5)
