Note that this is from a personal perspective
Speaking to a speech and language therapist yesterday it got me thinking about my autism trajectory and what residual and very apparent markers of disability are still present and more importantly how they manifest and present themselves.
LOOKING BACK
As a child it took me a long to time to speak and use language in a functional way this meant that both receptive and expressive language was hard to filter and decode into something that was connecting and meaningful.
LEFT HEMISPHERE & LANGUAGE
As I have stated in previous blogs part of my development was due to brain injury to the left hemisphere this part of brain is were human language is formed (although other aspects of the brain will connect with this).
THE PRESENTATION NOW 1 – VERBAL LANGUAGE
As an adult the type of a aphasia (receptive and expressive) as apart of my autism would be considered residual in presentation and it effects me with I tired my words get stuck like a “blockage” and I have to consciously “find” the words which seem almost on “there” but disappear leaving me to have longer pauses or repeat “umm” for example.
THE PRESENTATION NOW 2 – VISUAL PERCEPTUAL DISORDERS & MENTALISING
Lacking visual internalisation means that I don not have a “meta-reality” which involves complex pictural referencing in other words I do not “store visual information in a coherent way” meaning that retrieval and word association when tired can be slowed down.
Having simultagnosia means I see things in pieces that has an effect on how I internalise visual information and mentalising (organising) and need to focus on movement, pattern and touch to externally map-out something rather than internally.
Anomic aphasia (also known as dysnomia, nominal aphasia, and amnesic aphasia) is a mild, fluent type of aphasia where an individual has word retrieval failures and cannot express the words they want to say (particularly nouns and verbs).[1] Anomia is a deficit of expressive language. The most pervasive deficit in the aphasias is anomia. Some level of anomia is seen in all of the aphasias.[2] Individuals with aphasia who display anomia can often describe an object in detail and maybe even use hand gestures to demonstrate how the object is used but cannot find the appropriate word to name the object. [3]
CONCLUSION THE PRESENTATION NOW 3 – ANOMIA (WORD FINDING)
It is completely understandable that not having an visual memory and having a long developmental history of language associated issues that word finding at times for me can be difficult but one much use what they have and accept what is going on. I’m glad I am in a position to understand what is going on and I hope this blog helps others who can relate to this. 🙂
Paul Isaacs 2017