Reassessing aphasic classifications with community detection analysis

Traditional models of aphasia have emphasized the distinction between speech production and comprehension deficits. This distinction dates back to the 1800’s and remains foundational to the aphasia sub-typing framework used in clinical aphasiology today. However, many patients do not fit into the classic aphasia sub-types (Caplan, 2012; Kasselimis et al., 2017). The aggregation of data from people with aphasia in large, publicly-available databases, combined with the development of novel analytic techniques, provides a new opportunity for data-driven discovery of aphasia sub-types.