Which type of aphasia is associated with nonfluent, effortful speech with relatively preserved comprehension?

• A. Wernicke's aphasia
• B. Broca's (expressive) aphasia
• C. Global aphasia
• D. Anomic aphasia

Answer: (B)

This pattern is classic for Broca's aphasia, also called expressive aphasia, produced by damage to the left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's area). Speech is nonfluent and effortful, often telegraphic with agrammatism, yet understanding spoken language is relatively preserved. Patients know what they want to say and can comprehend others, but forming the words and sentences requires significant effort, and repetition is typically impaired due to the motor planning and speech production deficit.

In contrast, Wernicke's aphasia presents with fluent, but nonsensical, speech and poor comprehension; global aphasia involves major loss of both production and comprehension; and anomic aphasia features fluent speech with relatively intact comprehension but notable difficulty with word-finding, especially naming.