Which statement best describes motor (expressive) aphasia?

• A. Inability to understand spoken language, though speech is fluent
• B. Inability to speak or write, with comprehension intact
• C. Fluent speech with impaired comprehension
• D. Difficulty with word repetition only

Answer: (B)

Motor (expressive) aphasia comes from damage to Broca’s area in the left hemisphere, leading to nonfluent, effortful speech and often impaired writing. The key feature is that understanding spoken language is preserved, so the person can comprehend what is said but struggles to produce words and sentences. That’s why a statement describing an inability to speak or write while comprehension remains intact best fits this type of aphasia.

Patterns that don’t fit come from other aphasias: receptive (Wernicke’s) aphasia involves fluent but—often—meaningless speech with poor comprehension; Conduction aphasia features fluent speech with good comprehension but difficulty repeating phrases; and some language production issues are characterized by impaired repetition rather than a global inability to speak.