Is motor alalia treated in children? Alalia in children: features of the treatment of the disease

Alalia is a disease characterized by gross speech underdevelopment or its complete absence. The disease occurs when the speech centers in the cerebral cortex are affected.

Alalia in children is accompanied by violations of several components of speech at once: phonetic-phonemic and lexical-grammatical structure. Children with this disease have very little vocabulary or don't speak at all.

Alalia is a rare and severe speech disorder. Alaliki children need comprehensive medical and psychological correction.

A survey of children with alalia showed that preschoolers are more susceptible to this disease, and to a lesser extent younger students. Also, experts note that alalia is more often diagnosed in boys than in girls.

Alalia reasons

There can be many reasons for this violation:

  • Pathologies of intrauterine development (fetal hypoxia, past diseases of the mother, trauma)
  • Genetic predisposition
  • Complications during childbirth: hypoxia, infection
  • Head injury
  • Poisoning by toxic substances

Alalia: types and symptoms

There are the following types of alalia:

  1. Motor Alalia (expressive)
  2. Sensory alalia (impressive)
  3. Mixed type (sensorimotor alalia or motor sensory)

Such a classification of alalia was introduced by V.A. Kovshikov, a famous Russian speech therapist, who was engaged in a deep study of speech disorders in children.

A characteristic feature of alalia is underdeveloped speech, when the child utters only sounds or syllables, the first or last in a word.

Motor

Motor alalia occurs when the communication of the cerebral speech centers (Broca and Wernick) with the organs of the speech apparatus is disturbed. Many children with this diagnosis do not master the language until they start school.

  • Intrauterine organic brain damage
  • Multiple injuries to both hemispheres of the brain.

The mechanisms of motor alalia are not yet fully understood. Experts note that organic brain lesions are the basis of motor alalia. However, some say that the impairment is based on motor pathology, while others say that mental disorders.

Signs of violation:

  1. Agrammatism (incorrect construction of sentences, incorrect use of forms and cases of words)
  2. Word Search Disorders
  3. Violation of the syllabic structure of words

If a child has a motor alalia, he can learn to speak, but never learn to write.

Important criteria for the diagnosis of alalia in children:

  • Slower pace of language acquisition
  • Pathological development of the tongue
  • Preservation of hearing
  • Understanding addressed speech

It is important to note that motor alalia is often combined with severe neurological and psychopathological disorders. (Children suffering from autism, oligophrenia often have speech pathologies).

It is important for parents to know that doctors can call motor alalia differently: "hearing-mute", "", "dysphasia", "developmental aphasia", "" and "constitutional delay", "", "impaired language acquisition", "language inability" ...

Sensory

A characteristic feature of sensory alalia is echolalia, when a child senselessly repeats the speech of an adult addressed to him.

Sensory alalia - speech underdevelopment, characterized by impaired understanding of speech. It is associated with damage to the left superior temporal gyrus of the brain, the so-called Wernicke center.

With sensory alalia, the child's speech perception is also impaired. The child does not understand the speech addressed to him and therefore does not speak.

Signs of violation:

  1. Obsessive and meaningless pronunciation of sounds and their combinations (perseveration).
  2. Unconscious repetition of someone else's words (echolalia).
  3. Combining several words into a single word (contamination).

Examination and correction

What examinations of children need to be carried out to clarify the diagnosis. If this pathology is suspected, it is important to assess the degree of brain damage.

To do this, you need to visit the following specialists:

  • Neurologist - will prescribe the necessary examinations and drug treatment.

Surveys:

EEG (electroencephalography)
ECHO-EG (echoencephalography)
Skull regngenography +
MRI of the brain

  • Otolaryngologist - check your hearing and speech aids.

Surveys:
Otoscopy
Audiometry
Testing the function of the auditory analyzer

  • It is also helpful to visit a child psychologist and speech therapist. These specialists will form a corrective program for working with your baby.

When correcting alalia, an integrated approach is important, which includes:

  1. Drug treatment
  2. Correctional work with a speech therapist and child psychologist.

Drug treatment includes mainly nootropic drugs (Cortexin, Kogitum, Encephabol, Gammolon, Cerakson), which stimulate the development of brain structures. Treatment is prescribed by a doctor. Usually, a small dose of medication is prescribed at the beginning, which is gradually withdrawn.

Also, the doctor may prescribe a child with speech disorders physiotherapy. Physiotherapy in combination with drugs give good results with alalia. They use magnetotherapy, laser therapy, electrophoresis, hydrotherapy.

Classes with a speech therapist

Correctional work with alalik children always presupposes a complex psychological, medical and psychological approach.

It is often used in the treatment of alalia in children. It is performed to restore the tone of the facial muscles.

  1. The following techniques are used:
    Relaxation of the tongue and its root, lips, muscles of the mouth and neck with acupressure, vibration impacts, light patting and stroking.
  2. Strengthening the muscles of the face by stroking the forehead, cheeks, kneading the cheekbones and cheek muscles.
  3. Linguistic gymnastics to establish the correct operation of the articulatory apparatus. The complex of gymnastics includes mimic exercises, exercises for the tongue and lips, phonetic exercises.

Pedagogical work is built in stages:

  1. Work on the origin of sounds.
  2. Evocation of syllables in speech.
  3. Linking syllables into words.

The teacher conducts with the child exercises for the correction of speech breathing, voice strength, intonation, correction of the syllable structure of the word, accumulation of speech stock.

Exercises:

  • Pendulum
    The speech therapist asks the child to stick out his tongue and move it from left to right. To make the child more understandable, the movements of the tongue can be compared with the movement of the tail of a fish or the tail of a fox.
    The fish swims and moves its tail: back and forth, back and forth.
    The chanterelle runs and wags its tail: left-right, left-right.
  • Puffing up the cheeks
    The speech therapist asks the kid to puff out his cheeks.
    Puff your cheeks like an angry teddy bear.
    Let's hide the apples by the cheeks!
  • Tubule
    The speech therapist asks to stretch the lips with a tube.
    What is the trunk of an elephant? That's so long!

Mimic exercises

  • Spring came
    The teacher invites the baby to imagine that spring has come. The child shows delight from meeting the sun, how he bask in the rays of the warm sun.
  • Bear in the house
    The teacher suggests a situation: spring has come, the snow has melted, and the melt water has got to the bear in the den. Mishka was frightened at first, then surprised and delighted with the coming of spring.

Exercises for the muscles of the neck

  • Flowers
    The teacher shows the child how the flowers swing, while tilting the head to the right and then to the left.
  • Sun
    The sun has warmed up, look (the baby raises his head up), flowers will soon grow (the baby lowers his head down).

Homework

Games and exercises to develop fine motor skills stimulate speech skills.

Such exercises can be performed not only in class with a speech therapist, but also at home. Parents can easily master these simple exercises on their own. It is enough to devote 15-20 minutes to classes a day. It is better if it is in the morning, before lunch, when the baby is still active and not overworked.

  • Transfer toys
    Any small items are offered to the crumb: buttons, large-sized beads, small toys (for example, from a kinder surprise). The kid is asked to arrange these items in small vessels (jars, cups).
  • Make beads
    The kid is given a thick thread and large beads and is offered to make beads. You can make beads for yourself or for your mom.

Make a bead game for the development of fine motor skills in children with speech disorders

  • Close the boxes
    The child is offered several boxes with lids of different sizes, but the same shape, for example, round or square. The adult opens the boxes and asks the child to find a suitable lid for each of them.
  • Catch the ball
    In a container with water, for example, in a basin or a bath, if the game will take place at home, put balls of different colors. The kid is offered a net with which he will catch the balls, then they are given tasks: get the red ball, and now the green one.
  • Button Pattern
    The child is offered buttons of different colors and sizes and a sheet of paper with a thin layer of plasticine. With the help of buttons, the baby lays out the pattern on paper.

Button patterns for the development of fine motor skills for alalik children

Sensory and motor alalia often leads to the fact that the baby does not use verbs in his speech. Therefore, games with cards that depict actions are effective.

  • Who's doing what
    To play, you will need cards that depict the actions: a mother feeds her daughter, a boy plays football. The teacher or mother first tells the baby about what is drawn in the picture, and then they ask him to tell.

It is important for the parents of an alalik child to help the child adapt in society.

If the child has alalia, it is important to seek help from specialists in time: doctors, teachers and psychologists. Timely assistance will help improve the course of the disease. In addition, it is very important to adapt the child to life in society.

The parents of an alalik child often face the question: what kind of school to teach a child? There are several opinions on this. On the one hand, the diagnosis of alalia does not imply disability, and if teachers and parents work with the child a lot, he can master the program of an ordinary school. On the other hand, with alalia, it will be much easier for a student to study in a special speech school or class, the program of which is adapted to his characteristics.

What are the advantages of studying in a specialized school:

  1. A special program adapted to the needs of the child.
  2. Additional hours of classes with a speech therapist and a psychologist.
  3. A small number of students in classes.

Try to help your child live as comfortably as possible with their disabilities, by all means.

"And my dad only spoke at six - why be afraid?" young mothers often brush aside the advice of their friends to show their silent child to a speech therapist. Many parents mistakenly believe that the first word spoken by a baby is a sign that his speech will continue to develop normally in the future. The fact that, relying on a blind chance, you can miss a serious childhood disease - alalia - moms and dads prefer not to think once again.

The correspondent tried to figure out whether the ailment is really as terrible as the experts paint it?

Alalia- speech underdevelopment due to damage to the speech areas of the cerebral cortex. She is perhaps one of the most insidious problems childhood... The cunning of this speech pathology is that its symptoms are not as easy to recognize as the manifestations of other ailments. And if the parents do not have a doctor's diploma in the closet (or at least a certificate of completion of nursing courses), it is often only doctors who can determine that a child is sick with alalia.

“Unfortunately, due to problems with the diagnosis of alalia at home and the inattention of parents to their own children, quite often this disease in children is detected too late. Already at the age of 5-7 years, alalia is amenable to treatment is much more difficult than for more early stages", - Anzhelika Zabolotnaya, a psychotherapist of the highest category of the Republican Scientific and Practical Center of Otorhinolaryngology, commented on the problem.

Myths about alalia

The main alalia is a myth walking among parents: the only sign of this ailment is a delay in the development of speech.

In fact, children talk with alalia. They just do it not quite like their healthy peers.

Alalia does not arise by itself. This is a consequence of damage to one of the two speech centers of the baby's cerebral cortex - Wernicke (responsible for understanding speech) or Broca (responsible for the motor skills of the speech muscles).

Depending on which center is damaged, there are two main types of alalia: sensory and motorrespectively.

With sensory alalia, children do not understand the meaning of other people's speech. True, such children can speak quite fluently, easily reproduce and subsequently repeat any of your words. Another thing is that, being unable to understand the meaning of the spoken words and phrases, such kids speak, as a rule, at random. Their speech is a jumble of completely unrelated words.

With another type of alalia - motor - the child is able to normally grasp the meaning of what others have said. But problems arise at the stage of information reproduction. Motor alalia is expressed in speech underdevelopment, difficulty in mastering an active vocabulary and grammatical structure language.

How to recognize an ailment?

In each individual case, alalia proceeds with its own characteristics. But in general, knowledge of the norms of speech development can help to recognize in a child serious problems with speech. According to the generally accepted rules that determine the appearance of sound and word pronunciation in a baby, at two months a child develops a characteristic humming. At 3-4 - babble. And at 6-8 months - the first words. By the age of one, the child should be able to build whole phrases. If, say, by the age of two, the child's vocabulary is calculated in a few words - it's time to start sounding the alarm.

One of the most obvious signs that can warn about alalia is the underdevelopment of the baby's speech. This is noticeable, for example, if a child pronounces only the first or last syllables of the words: ma ... (the word "mother"), ... tka (crib), etc. Another factor indicating an ailment is speech that is overly slow in development. , lack of clear speech progress.

How to treat?

Even in the most severe cases of alalia, the situation is not hopeless: if the treatment was started on time, the disease can be overcome. The whole secret is in the plasticity inherent in children's brains. This means that healthy cells of the brain can take over the functions of the damaged cells and actually replace them.

As for the development of speech in a child with alalia, in each case, the treatment is individual and will be under the supervision of specialists. But with some things parents can help their beloved child at home.

Doctors often say that "a baby's speech is at his fingertips." This, at first glance, incomprehensible phrase can be explained by the connection of fine motor skills and some speech centers. Thus, the better developed a child's fingers are, the better his speech develops. A finger massage will bring tangible benefits to the baby.

However, it will not be superfluous to do finger gymnastics. To do this, you can give the crumb the opportunity to manipulate various small objects (string beads, fold mosaics, build from a constructor, choose multi-colored peas from the box and sort them, etc.)

So that you don't have to heal

However, no one has canceled the good old prophylaxis either. We publish a list of situations in which it is better for parents to double their control over the child's speech. Below we attach a list of measures recommended to prevent the development of alalia.

At risk:

  • mothers who have undergone infectious and somatic diseases during pregnancy;
  • mothers suffering from pregnancy anemia (in this case, the child does not receive the oxygen, glucose and other nutrients he needs);
  • mothers who underwent during pregnancy (especially on early dates) a viral infection (it is during this period that the baby's nervous system is formed);
  • mothers who have undergone difficult childbirth;
  • mothers who gave birth too quickly. According to the norms, childbirth should last 18-20 hours. And if a woman gives birth too quickly, the bones of the child's skull do not have time to adapt to the birth canal, the brain may suffer at the same time;
  • mothers who have undergone a long anhydrous period. According to the norms, a woman should give birth within 2-3 hours after the rupture of amniotic fluid. If childbirth is delayed, the child is without a nutrient medium necessary for its normal development;
  • mothers with a narrow pelvis.

How to minimize risks?

Doctors did not find any special recipes to prevent the development of alalia. But, according to the psychotherapist Angelica Zabolotnaya, “against alalia, familiar to all of us is effective from childhood healthy image life ":

1. It is very important that the pregnancy is desired and planned, and the child is expected and loved. At the same time, no matter how ideal health is, you need to prepare for pregnancy (sanitize foci of infection, normalize hemoglobin and arterial pressure). During pregnancy, avoid contact with infectious patients, eat well and varied.

2. You should breastfeed your baby for as long as possible.

3. It is important to protect the baby from infectious diseases.

4. Show the child to the pediatrician and specialized specialists in time. Be sure to follow the advice of doctors, because treatment started on time in the future will minimize problems, including speech problems.

And, most importantly, remember: there is nothing wrong with playing it safe, once again showing the child to a specialist, but hearing: "It's okay ... You shouldn't worry, mom!" It is much worse to delay and receive a disappointing answer from the doctor: "What a pity that you applied so late ...".

Motor Alalia is a systemic underdevelopment of expressive speech (active oral expression) of a central organic nature, caused by damage to the speech zones of the cerebral cortex in the intrauterine or early period development of speech. This violation is due to the unformed language operations of the process of generating speech utterances with the relative safety of semantic and sensorimotor operations.

The causes of motor alalia:

Birth trauma and asphyxiation.

Intrauterine encephalitis and meningitis.

Unfavorable conditions for development.

Intoxication of the fetus.

Congenital burden.

Intrauterine or early intravital brain injury.

Diseases of early childhood with burden on the brain.

Motor alalia is not just a temporary delay in speech development. The whole process of the formation of speech in this disorder takes place in the conditions of a pathological state of the central nervous system. Individual manifestations of motor alalia outwardly turn out to be similar to the normal development of a child at an earlier stage.

Motor alalia is a complex syndrome, a complex of speech and non-speech symptoms, the relationship between which is ambiguous. In the structure of a speech defect in motor alalia, language disorders are the leading ones.

Symptoms of motor alalia:

Speech:

Children suffering from this form of alalia have sufficient pronunciation abilities, but they are not able to use them. Violations are phonemic in nature, they have a violation of the operation of choosing a sound to formulate a speech utterance. In the speech of motor alaliks, literal paraphasias (replacement of a sound in a word with another), perseverations (obsessive reproduction of sounds or words), and elision (loss of sounds) abound.

There are also violations of the semantic side of speech. In the passive vocabulary of these children, there are significantly more words than they use in active speech. There is a predominance of subject vocabulary, while the verb vocabulary is sharply limited, both the understanding of verbs and the use in speech.

Children replace some words with others that are similar in meaning and are included with them in the same associative field, for example, instead of the word table, they say a chair, etc. Contamination can be observed in speech when a child in speech combines syllables related to different words into one word for example - trashet - the tractor plows.

Violation of the grammatical structure of speech is manifested in the incorrect coordination of words by number, gender, case, time. Children omit prepositions in speech. Most motor alaliks understand the addressed speech at the nominative level (they know mainly the names of objects).

Non-speech:

Severe neurological disorders are observed:

Oral apraxia (movement disorders of purposeful movements and actions of the facial muscles with a disorder of complex movements of the lips and tongue).

· General motor awkwardness, in children with motor alalia imbalance.

· Violation of fine motor skills.

· Signs of minimal brain dysfunction.

· Pronounced vegetative-vascular changes.

Psychopathological symptoms:

· Speech negativism (unwillingness to speak) is very characteristic.

· Mental development children are lagging behind the norm to varying degrees.

· Higher mental functions (memory, attention, thinking, etc.) are formed unevenly.

· Local lesions of the cerebral cortex also affect the nearby speech zones.

· The programming of one's actions is difficult, there is a decrease in the volatility of actions.

· Children are inhibited, but more often disinhibited and impulsive.

· Poorly adapt to the conditions that surround them.

· There is a pronounced lack of formation of game actions.

· Children are resentful, withdrawn and often aggressive.

Recently, speech therapists and neurologists have made the diagnosis of motor alalia much more often than it should be. Motor alalia is something like a common diagnosis of acute respiratory viral infections and acute respiratory infections, all non-speaking children are automatically recorded in motor alaliki, although they are not always such.

If your child should already be talking, but is silent, then it's time to sound the alarm... This should not be ignored, as the child may have alalia.

This disease develops due to insufficient development of the speech center located in the child's cerebral cortex. Early diagnosis pathology contributes to an effective and quick result.

Is it possible to treat alalia in children and at home? This will be discussed further.

What is alalia in children? It happens that a child understands everything and fulfills requests, but does not speak at all or does it badly. Underdevelopment of speech or its complete absence is called alalia.

Among preschoolers, this disorder occurs in 1%, among schoolchildren - 0.5%. It is worth noting that boys suffer from pathology 2 times more often than girls.

The reasons for the appearance of alalia are still not clear... However, risk factors are known and include:

All this can cause the child to cease to perceive the speech of other people and to speak.

Alalia means systemic speech underdevelopment, a violation of all its components occurs... In this case, the child:

  • pronounces sounds incorrectly;
  • has a poor vocabulary;
  • does not understand other people's speech;
  • violates the grammatical structure of speech;
  • has difficulty learning writing and reading skills.

In addition to these signs, children-alaliks have movement disorders, psychopathological and neurological manifestations. The set of symptoms is individual.

In total, there are 3 types of alalia: sensory, motor and mixed.

Ask a doctor. Alalia

If a three-year-old child's speech is extremely poorly developed, then you need to see a doctor. Signs of sensory alalia in children should be detected in time and treatment should be prescribed.

The disease is very dangerous, it affects the part of the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for correct speech analysis. The child is unable to match the sound designation of the visual image.

It looks like this: the child hears you, but does not understand.

Signs of sensory alalia include:

  1. Disinhibition of speech, that is, the child talks a lot in "his" language, incomprehensible to those around him.
  2. Intellectual underdevelopment.
  3. Substitution of letters in simple words.
  4. Speech is perceived by ear with difficulty.
  5. Excessive impulsivity and activity combined with depression and withdrawal.
  6. Pronunciation of several words as one.
  7. The child is not able to mentally link the name of the object and its image.

Motor Alalia

The second type of pathology is motor alalia. The baby's speech develops very slowly, it is difficult for him to master speech skills. But the child understands very well what adults are talking about and fulfills all requests.

Timely treatment of motor alalia in children should be prescribed. It can be identified by the following features:

  1. The child's speech is formed quite late, he can pronounce the first words at 4 years old.
  2. Incorrect sentence construction. Words are used in the wrong number, gender and case.
  3. Poor vocabulary.
  4. The child is inattentive. As a rule, inactive or, conversely, hyperactive.
  5. Poor motor coordination.
  6. Aggressiveness, isolation, not wanting to talk.

With this form of the disease, violations are observed that are characteristic of both of the above types.

The connection of the brain with the speech apparatus, the ability to perceive someone else's speech is broken.

As a result, the child cannot speak and does not understand the speech addressed to him. This is the most severe type of speech development disorder.

Alalia progression can lead to mental retardation, therefore, the disease must be treated.

After being diagnosed, parents wonder if alalia can be cured in children. Treatment should be comprehensive, it depends on the degree of development of the pathology and its type.

Immediately, we note that alalia does not respond well to treatment, but there is always a chance of complete recovery. Therefore, you need to be patient and help your child cope with speech defects.

There are several ways to treat the disease:

To quickly get rid of the disease, it is necessary to use all the methods of treatment prescribed by the doctor.

Motor and sensory alalia are easier to correct at 3 years of age than at an older age. Therefore, it is important to diagnose pathology at an early stage of its development.

Home therapy is considered the most effective, but it should be based on the recommendations of a speech therapist. It takes a lot of effort to recover.

Where to start classes? To get started, you can start with simple exercises:

Developmental activities should be carried out in a playful way so as not to strain the child. With the help of such exercises, attention, memory features, the ability to distinguish, generalize and correlate objects are developed. These qualities improve the assimilation of speech skills.

Also, for the development of speech, it is necessary to carry out physical exercisesaimed at the development of fine motor skills. These are modeling, ball games, finger gymnastics, mosaics, cutting, folding and unfolding toys (sorting, pyramids, nesting dolls), drawing.

Let's look at some of the exercises in more detail.

Any speech correction program provides for memorizing poetry.

It has long been known that poetic speech is much easier to perceive and reproduce.

You should start by repeating lines and their pronunciation.... Then you can memorize quatrains with short lines.

The exercise can be accompanied by a demonstration of pictures or drawing. This will help you quickly understand the meaning of the text.

Over time, many learned rhymes will accumulate that need to be repeated. Gradually, speech will become clear and correct.

guess a riddle

Children's riddles have always been used in folk pedagogy... They acquaint the child with the world around him, broaden his horizons, expand vocabulary, develop observation and memory.

You should start with easy riddles, accompanying them with appropriate pictures. The child must show the answer in the picture and name it.

You can immediately analyze the structure of the puzzle, which will allow the child to understand it faster.

The next step is memorization. This can be done if the child has already learned how to pronounce words and build phrases.

The most useful riddles are those with repetitions. They will train the speech apparatus well..

This is a great simulator not only for a child, but also for an adult. Tongue twisters improve the vocal apparatus and make it obedient.

With regular training, speech will become correct and expressive..

You should start with the simplest ones that can be easily repeated. To make the child interested in tongue twisters, you can pick up funny ones where famous heroes are present.

For example, "a skinny weak Koschey drags a box of vegetables." Pronunciation speed will be slow at first, but will become fast over time.

Play with your child in mosaics, identifying colors and sounds. Speak out all the names of the items in the game.

Do not forget that computer games are good when used with caution and for a short time (20-30 minutes a day). Vivid moving pictures can overstimulate your baby's nervous system. Play with your child.

Is Alalia Treated? Yes, although the treatment is long and difficult... It is very important to diagnose pathology at an early stage.

If the child is lagging behind developmental norms, a neurologist should be visited. Sensory alalia is much easier to get rid of than motor alalia.

The development of the vocal apparatus will allow the child to grow into a full-fledged personality. A specialist will tell you how to treat alalia. It is important not only to take the prescribed medications, but also to work with the child at home.

All classes should be playful and light-hearted in order to interest the baby. Be healthy!

Children under the age of one year voice their requirements with an indistinct set of sounds. Over time, they gradually learn words and express themselves more clearly and clearly. However, it happens that the child does not begin to speak in due time.

He is either silent at all, or utters separate combinations of sounds that have no connection with each other.

The reason for this turn of events may be due to the underdevelopment of speech for one reason or another. From what alalia arises and what are its symptoms, we will consider further.

What is alalia

, which is characterized by the absence of speech in the child as a result of its underdevelopment, or its complete absence.

This condition is provoked by pathologies in the speech centers of the brain. Changes in these centers most often occur during the period of intrauterine formation of the body or in early childhood - in under 36 months.

Children with speech disorders may have enough high level development, however, can't speak, or they use very little vocabulary to express emotions.

Difficulty in diagnosing alalia lies in the inability to accurately determine the symptoms in the early stages. As a rule, the diagnosis is made when the child should have already spoken, but does not.

Alalia is most often diagnosed in preschoolers, as well as in children of primary school age. It was also noted that among boys, pathology is more common than among girls.

It often happens that parents confuse this disease with deafness or dumbness. The symptomatology of the pathologies is similar, but these are completely different diseases. You can check the baby in infancyaddressing him with varying intensity of voice. By following the child's reaction, it can be concluded whether he is able to respond to the voice. Children from the age of one year can be asked to submit a certain object, toy. This way you can understand if the child understands speech.

Causes of pathology

can be very different:

  • Mechanical impact on the fetus during gestation or during childbirth;
  • Complications of pregnancy as a result of severe toxicosis, as well as as a result of chronic diseases that a pregnant woman was ill with;
  • Pathological course of pregnancy with the threat of miscarriage;
  • Complications during generic activity: rapid or protracted labor;
  • Infection of the mother or fetus during childbirth;
  • Hereditary predisposition;
  • Injury during childbirth;
  • Asphyxia.

Alalia can also occur due to improper use of medical instruments during childbirth. Also, a disease that depletes the nervous system can provoke a violation of the development of speech centers. Frequent colds and viral diseases, adverse conditions can cause the onset of the disease.

Disease types

In a normal state, the speech centers of the brain are responsible for two forms of speech: impressive (understanding what is heard, building images) and expressive (the ability to express thoughts in words). Depending on the type of impairment in the speech center, there are three types of alalia: sensory, motor and mixed.

  1. ... This type is characterized by impaired speech perception by the speech analyzer. The child hears words, however, he cannot connect the names of objects and images. In other words, a person does not understand the speech addressed to him. Children with this type of pathology do not respond to speech addressed to them and do not respond if you call them. In some cases, in conjunction with this type of violation, intellectual underdevelopment is observed.
  2. ... Violation in the formation of expressive speech. The child understands the words addressed to him, but has difficulty in forming his own speech. For such children, late development of speech is characteristic - by the age of five, a small vocabulary and a distraction of attention. Motor alalia is more treatable than the other two forms.
  3. Mixed - sensory motor alalia... In other words, total alalia. It arises with the complete incapacity of the speech centers of the brain. The child not only cannot speak, but also does not distinguish the speech of other people. Absolutely all children with this type of pathology lag behind in intellectual development.

Sensory alalia: symptoms

refers to severe types of speech pathologies. As a rule, the child hears the spoken speech, but does not understand it. There is no meaningful speech in such children. They can pronounce sounds in a chaotic manner. Disinhibition of speech is also observed, that is, it is difficult to silence the baby.

In patients with sensory alalia, there may be an aggravated reaction to ambient sounds - hyperacusis.

The speech of sensory alaliks consists in the obsessive repetition of sounds and their combinations, as well as in echolalia - repetition of heard words.

Children with sensory alalia are characterized by increased "talkativeness": they pronounce many sounds, but their speech has no semantic load.

When mild form sensory alalia, children are able to distinguish certain intonations and phrases. Some of these children learn to lip-read as they get older.

The severe form of the sensory alalia disease is characterized by a complete inability to distinguish human speech. In alaliks with this form of pathology, increased excitability and inability to maintain attention for a long time are observed. A severe form of pathology provokes memory underdevelopment and mental health disorders.

Motor alalia: symptoms

The first manifestations of motor alalia can be seen in infancy. The baby does not ghoul (monotonous sounds are heard in babbling), and by the onset of the year does not pronounce individual syllables... Such children begin to pronounce words only by the age of five. Their speech is extremely poor. Children with motor alalia get confused in the declension of words, have difficulty forming sentences. The patient's voice is often loud. Correct pronunciation is typical in the case of soft consonants.

Motor alalia is characterized by phonetic changes in words with a similar letter set. Similarly sounding syllables are interchangeable for the child. The kid hears the words, but interprets them incorrectly, as a result of which he cannot correctly understand the question and answer it.

If a child has "confused" letters ("vecta" instead of "branch"), this does not mean that the baby has a pathology of "motor alalia". You should be wary if a child still staunchly utters distorted words by entering the first grade of school. In this case, you need to contact a speech therapist.

With a mild form of motor alalia, the child is most often expressed in nominative phrases, and also does not agree on the endings of words. In general, his speech is understandable, despite the incorrect grammatical structure of speech.

The severe form of motor alalia is accompanied by the formation of separate sounds instead of full speech. These children are most often hyperactive and unable to concentrate. Alaliks are also characterized by mental retardation and inability to perform small motor functions.

Diagnosis

To conduct a survey for the abnormal development of speech centers, the following specialists are visited:

  • Pediatrician;
  • Neurologist;
  • Otolaryngologist;
  • Psychologist;
  • In some cases, a neurosurgeon.

Differential examination of the baby helps to exclude other diseases with similar symptoms. One of the following methods is used to examine the brain: examination using X-rays, EEG, MRI. Otoscopy and audiometry are performed to exclude the option of hearing loss.

During the examination, the mother is also asked about the course of pregnancy, her condition during the bearing of the child.

Treatment

Alalia in children is subject to treatment by complex methods: medical treatment, pedagogical and psychological assistance is necessary.

Drug treatment

Treatment with medical supplies includes the reception of funds that stimulate the development of structures of the central nervous system... For children, neotropic drugs are prescribed as monotherapy.

The dosage and duration of the course is determined by the attending physician individually for each sick child. As a rule, the duration of taking neotropic stimulants is carried out for three months, and then repeated after a short break.

So far, there is no reliable evidence of the effectiveness of drug treatment in the case of infant alalia.

In addition to drug treatment, the child's diet is being corrected. The presence of all the necessary nutrients... With the help of vitamin and mineral complexes, immunity and general strengthening therapy are strengthened.

Physiotherapy for alalia

Physiotherapy courses give positive results in the treatment of general speech underdevelopment. Hydrotherapy, which has a tonic, relaxing and restorative effect, is considered effective.

Electrotherapy also makes sense, the action of which is aimed at stimulating the brain centers with weak electrical impulses. The procedure consists in influencing certain points on the body that are responsible for the neurohumoral transmission of reflexes.

Classes with a teacher

Medical treatment does not make sense without parallel sessions of a sick child with a speech therapist. Pedagogical correction consists of the following techniques:

  • Development of the articulatory apparatus through repetition of sounds and the development of correct pronunciation;
  • Formation of connections between words and images. With the help of pictures, the teacher teaches the child to understand the meaning of what was said and correctly use the endings of words. Therapy with sensory alalia is especially relevant.
  • Learning new words and phrases while developing fine motor skills. Children learn to sculpt from plasticine and draw, while voicing what is happening;
  • Speech therapy massage is aimed at developing the muscular system of the mouth and the formation of the correct pronunciation of sounds. Children learn to correctly fold their lips during pronunciation, draw sounds, and hold their tongue against the palate.

Social adaptation

Children who have been diagnosed with sensory alalia or motor alalia need socialization, since communication with people helps develop the speech centers of the brain, as well as forms the ability to maintain attention and control emotions.

There are special schools where children with similar disabilities are taught. There are also separate sanatoriums and groups of extracurricular activities where specialists work with alaliks.

Alalia is a serious developmental disorder, therefore, the appearance of speech functions in a child should be monitored from the first months of life. Failure to provide assistance to a child with alalia on time can lead to disability.

Treatment of disorders of speech centers is a long process. Only systematic exercises in conjunction with physiotherapy and drug treatment will give a positive result.

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