On being asked to describe a picture of a girlgiving flowers to her teacher, one patient said:
"Girl . . . . . . . . wants to . . . . . . . . flowers . . . . . . . . flowers and . . . . . . . . flowers wants to . . . . . . . . the woman wants to . . . . . . . . the girl wants to . . . . . . . . the woman"
The patient is suffering from

This question is about different types of language problems in the brain. Imagine you see a picture of a girl giving flowers to her teacher.

A healthy person would easily describe it. But this patient's description is unusual: "Girl . . . . . . . . wants to . . . . . . . . flowers . . . . . . . . flowers and . . . . . . . . flowers wants to . . . . . . . . the woman wants to . . . . . . . . the girl wants to . . . . . . . . the woman".

Notice how their speech is filled with pauses and repetitions, and the sentence structure is messed up, even though the words themselves seem mostly correct.

This type of problem is called aphasia, which means difficulty with language. There are different types:

Broca's aphasia affects the ability to produce speech. People with Broca's aphasia might understand what you say but struggle to speak fluently and grammatically.

Wernicke's aphasia affects the ability to understand speech. People with Wernicke's aphasia might speak fluently, but what they say doesn't make sense.

Looking at the patient's description, their speech is fluent but nonsensical. This points more towards a problem with understanding language than with producing it.

Therefore, the patient is most likely suffering from Wernicke's aphasia.