Many will recognize it ... just looking for the right word...

It occurs in healthy people, but in people with brain damage it occurs too often for their liking.

You don't have to have aphasia to have trouble finding the word or not being able to get your words out.

Sometimes you only know the sound, or the first letter, or you can see it in your mind's eye but what is it called??

 

Another example is speech apraxia: Letters are turned around in a word or a person starts to falter or cannot start speaking properly. 

On this page we limit ourselves to not being able to find the right word.

 

Word-finding problems can manifest themselves in different ways, but one characteristic is general:
The intended word is present in the person's brain but is not found. Sometimes there is a complete mispronunciation.
Not being able to remember someone's name but remembering a few letters from that name also fall under word-finding problems.

 

Usually it is a temporary blocking of access to the word. Searching for a word is extremely tiring.
Sometimes it is confronting and people can feel embarrassed that it happens. Other people with brain injury can have a good laugh at a slip of the tongue.

 

The different word-finding problems

• The target word is not found.
  
• The correct word is not reached; however, the speaker notices that other words come to mind.
  

 

All this has to do with different damage in other places in the brain.

• Sometimes the sound or initial letter of the word seems to be found.
  
• Sometimes a synonym seems to be found.
  
• Sometimes a completely different word seems to be found.
  
• Sometimes the speaker thinks in 'pictures'; sees the word in front of him but describes it incorrectly.
  
• The person makes a mistake during the actual speaking and
  replaces the intended word with another word that resembles it in one of the ways just described.
  
• Sometimes a new word is invented to get out of a situation.

 

Speech apraxia and word-finding problems may also occur during periods of overstimulation or great fatigue caused by brain injury.
This does not have to be alarming.

It subsides when the overstimulation or fatigue subsides.

New research shows that word concepts are spread throughout the brain.

Words with multiple meanings are also located in different places in the brain. As a result, it may also take longer for a word to be interpreted or found.
Read more..