How is Bilingual Aphasia Different from Monolingual Aphasia?
What is Bilingual Aphasia?
Bilingual aphasia occurs when a person who speaks two languages develops aphasia, an acquired language disorder commonly caused by stroke.
How Bilingual Aphasia is Different
Cases of bilingual and multilingual aphasia differ from monolingual aphasia due to the interaction of multiple languages in the brain.
Decades of research have indicated that when someone knows more than one language, these languages share resources within the brain, but they also have individual and separate control mechanisms. The balance between these shared and separate systems can vary from person to person.
For example, a person’s pattern of aphasia may depend on when they learned each language, how often they use each language, how fluent they are in each language, and which languages are most important in their daily life.
As a result, bilingual aphasia does not always affect both languages in the same way. Some people may have similar difficulties across both languages. Others may experience more difficulty in one language than the other. In some cases, one language may recover faster, or treatment in one language may help support improvement in another. These patterns are highly individual.
Why This Matters for Care
Over half of the world’s population speaks more than one language. So, it is important that clinicians understand these differences, trends, and patterns and consider the full language background of each person. Understanding a person’s language history can help clinicians provide appropriate diagnosis and treatment options in bilingual populations.
The Center for Brain Recovery’s Resources
While aphasia can be life-changing, it is important to know that recovery is possible. Many people improve with time, and speech-language therapy plays a central role in helping individuals regain communication skills. The BU Center for Brain Recovery offers a number of resources to support those impacted by aphasia due to neurological disorders.
Our resources include:
- Conversation, Health, Art, Technology (CHAT) Resource Group
- Intensive Cognitive and Communication Rehabilitation (ICCR)
If you or a loved one have been affected by aphasia, and you would like to learn more about the BU Center for Brain Recovery’s resources, events, and work to improve our understanding of neurological disorders, subscribe to our newsletter.
And if you would like to get involved, reach out to us about joining our studies.