Communicative behaviour in aphasia

We often hear that ‘aphasics communicate better than they speak’. This proposition seems very paradoxical if we consider that speech constitutes the main tool of communication among human beings. Indeed, common sense, and perhaps more significantly, the suffering of brain-damaged subjects, attest to the fact that aphasia, in its diverse forms, entails an impairment in the capacity to interact with other people. Thus, how can we understand the contention of spared communicative ability despite speech pathology? To answer this question, I shall first consider four theoretical proposals which may account for communication in aphasia. Then., I shall illustrate these possible answers with the case of the referential communication task, a procedure which has been pervasively used in the experimental analysis and the rehabilitation of the communicative behaviour.