A patient clearly understands every spoken and written instruction given to him, following each one correctly, but struggles severely to produce any spoken response, managing only a few effortful, halting words at a time. Before revealing the answer: is this receptive aphasia?
No, this is more consistent with expressive aphasia than with receptive aphasia. Receptive aphasia involves comprehension as the chief difficulty; here, comprehension is fully intact, with the difficulty confined to producing spoken output, which is the defining pattern of expressive aphasia rather than a comprehension-based deficit.
References
- Casey, P. & Kelly, B. (2019). Fish's Clinical Psychopathology, 4th ed. Ch. 4, 'Disorders of Thought and Speech'.