Wernicke's aphasia is best described as?

• A. Fluent speech with deficits in understanding words
• B. Nonfluent speech with intact comprehension
• C. Fluent speech with intact comprehension
• D. Nonfluent speech with deficits in articulation

Answer: (A)

Wernicke's aphasia is characterized by fluent, flowing speech that often sounds normal in rhythm and intonation, but the content is often meaningless due to impaired language comprehension. People produce words smoothly yet have trouble understanding spoken language, and they may use jargon or create new words. They often are unaware of their errors and may have difficulty with repeating heard speech. This combination— fluent speech with impaired comprehension—best matches the described profile. The other patterns point to different language disturbances: nonfluent speech with relatively preserved comprehension fits Broca's aphasia, fluent speech with intact comprehension would be typical of normal language, and nonfluent speech with articulation problems suggests a motor speech issue rather than Wernicke's aphasia.