There are three principal sources of communication difficulties arising from damage to the brain:

     a) damage to the communication areas of the brain which may cause:

• Dysphasia: Word finding, sentence construction and comprehension difficulties
• Dysarthria: Muscle control difficulties
• Dyspraxia: Muscle co-ordination difficulties
• Non-verbal communication difficulties

     b) damage to the cognitive areas of the brain which may cause:

• Memory problems
• Information processing problems
• Planning problems
• Inflexible thought process
• Initiation problems
• Control problems

     c) damage to the brain's frontal lobe causing which may cause social communication deficits for example:

• difficulty following the social rules and conventions of communication

The following diagram shows the physical areas of the brain and the associated functions.

Click on the diagram to activate it.

If you have already completed Module 1 Introduction to Traumatic Brain Injury you can go to the next section 2.3 Experience - what its like to have a communication problem.

Many of the things we do depend on several functions, which means several of these areas must work together. For example, in order to follow the direction "put your socks on" you need to use the following areas:

• the area for understanding language, in order to understand the direction
• the area for spatial orientation, to be able to find your sock
• the area for controlling limb movements, in order to put your sock on
• and the area for planning in order to be able to plan these steps and execute them in the correct order

For further detail on the anatomy of the brain see Module 1.3 Anatomy