Alalia in a child - symptoms, signs and diagnosis. Symptoms of alalia in children, treatment methods at home Alalia disease in children

Your child should have started talking a long time ago, but is stubbornly silent? This alarming symptom cannot be ignored. The cause of speech impairment in a child may be sensory or motor alalia.

This disease usually develops against the background of insufficient development of the speech center in the baby’s cerebral cortex. In order for a doctor to prescribe effective treatment for alalia in a baby, it is very important to recognize the pathology at an early stage.

Speech alalia is diagnosed in approximately 1% of preschool children and 0.2-0.6% of school-age children; in boys, its development is observed 2 times more often. A child with alalia needs psychological, medical and pedagogical intervention, which must necessarily be comprehensive, include drug therapy, as well as the development of mental functions, coherent speech, lexical-grammatical and phonetic-phonemic processes.

What it is?

Alalia is a speech disorder in children, the mechanism of which is based on pathologies and insufficient development of the speech centers of the cerebral cortex. Pathological changes usually occur during intrauterine development or early childhood (up to three years), so they are difficult to diagnose.

The disease is characterized by insufficient development or complete absence of speech.

Causes

The following factors lead to the disease:

1. Intrauterine hypoxia.
2. Intrauterine TORCH infection.
3. Constant threat of miscarriage.
4. Toxicosis.
5. Injuries during pregnancy.
6. Chronic somatic disease of a pregnant woman - low or high blood pressure, pulmonary,.

Most often, alalia is provoked by complicated childbirth or perinatal pathology. In some situations, the disease develops in the case of asphyxia of the newborn, intracranial injury to the baby during rapid or emergency childbirth, as well as when using various instruments.

Alalia symptoms

Impaired functioning of certain parts of the brain leads to the emergence of alalia in children, which can manifest itself as mild speech defects, moderate or severe disorders (the child does not speak until ten, sometimes up to twelve years, or his speech is limited to a rather poor vocabulary and is characterized by ungrammaticality, despite extensive training ).

Let's look at each form in more detail.

Motor alalia in children

Motor alalia in children manifests itself in their inability to pronounce words clearly. But in the vast majority of cases, children with this form of the disease are unable to speak at all. They are simply silent. Although here the perception of extraneous speech may not be impaired.

Motor alalia is the child’s inability to repeat the pronunciation of a sound, syllable or word. The child understands all words and can show their meaning with gestures. But the pronunciation is missing. The reason is a disruption in the connection of the brain speech centers with the organs of the speech apparatus.

An even more severe form of the disorder is sensorimotor alalia. In this condition, the child does not understand foreign speech, does not have the ability to recognize it, and cannot speak. Sensorimotor alalia occurs in approximately 3.7% of all cases of the disease.

Sensory alalia in children

Sensory alalia in children manifests itself in the fact that the baby does not perceive extraneous speech. At the same time, he has speech disinhibition. It is difficult to interrupt the flow of speech in such a baby and make him hear what you are saying to him.

The cause of sensory alalia is the weakness of the speech analyzer in the cerebral hemispheres. The nerve impulse may reach it weakly or not at all. Damage to the nerve signal transmission pathways is observed.

Mixed alalia

The symptoms and treatment of mixed alalia are very serious. With this pathology, the entire sensorimotor area of ​​the cerebral cortex is affected. Sick children not only do not understand what their parents say, but they also cannot speak. This form of pathology is the most difficult to treat, and even an integrated approach does not guarantee a positive prognosis.

The disease may appear gradually. If at 1.5-2 years the lack of coherent speech in a child does not cause strong concerns among parents, then the same defect at 3-4 years should alert you. Pathology has a direct effect on the cerebral cortex. For treatment to be as effective as possible, try to identify the disease at the earliest stage of development.

Treatment of alalia in children

Therapy for this disorder is based on test results and the degree of manifestation of symptoms, and therefore will be developed individually for each little patient. The most favorable age for treating alalia is considered to be 4 years old; it is during this period that the child shows the greatest interest in the world around him.

Common treatments include:

1. Conducting therapeutic speech therapy facial massages. This method of treatment helps to tone and relax the facial muscles, which can reduce the manifestation of some symptoms;
2. Courses with a speech therapist, which are often combined with taking medications. Classes with a doctor will be effective for all forms of the disease. The treatment regimen is drawn up for each child separately - taking into account the general state of health, age and degree of disorder. The task of a speech therapist is to develop speech ability, teach how to correctly pronounce words and construct phrases, and also increase vocabulary. Taking medications is aimed at improving the nutrition of the brain (a complete supply of vitamins and nutrients);
3. Physiotherapy, the purpose of which is to influence certain areas of the brain with electrical impulses. This method of treatment does not harm health and is completely painless, so it can be performed on children under the age of one year.

If you carry out timely, and most importantly, well-chosen treatment, the child will get rid of all the symptoms of the disease or learn to control them. But the main thing is that he will be able to study in a comprehensive school and adapt to society.

Parental support plays an important role in therapy, since it is important for the child to know that his successes in treatment do not go unnoticed by those closest to him; this will provide an additional incentive for a speedy recovery, which further facilitates treatment.

Alalia correction

Correction of alalia is carried out simultaneously with drug therapy, which is aimed at stimulating the maturation of brain structures, as well as physiotherapy (magnetotherapy, laser therapy, hydrotherapy, electrophoresis, electropuncture). With alalia, it is very important to work on the development of motor skills - manual and general, as well as mental functions (attention, memory, thinking).

Considering the fact that the violation is systemic in nature, classes to correct alalia involve working on all aspects of speech. In particular, with motor alalia in children, speech activity is stimulated, work is done on sound pronunciation, vocabulary formation, development of coherent speech, and grammatical design of statements. Speech therapy classes for alalia necessarily include speech therapy massage and logorhythmics.

With sensory alalia, the tasks are to master the distinction between non-speech and speech sounds, the differentiation of words, their correlation with specific objects and actions, the understanding of phrases and speech instructions, and the grammatical structure of speech. As the vocabulary accumulates, subtle acoustic differentiations and phonemic perception are formed, the development of the child’s own speech becomes possible.

Classes at the clinic

Alalia can be cured in specialized clinics. This method is one of the most effective, since children are trained using a specially developed method:

• development of cognitive function;
• formation of morphological and sound analysis;
• restoration of semantic aspects of speech, etc.

In such clinics you can get advice from a speech therapist, neurologist, psychoneurologist, or psychiatrist. They will be able to give advice on treatment, nutrition and diet of the child during illness. In this case, meals should be fractional and correct; the child needs to eat more vegetables and fruits, as well as lean meats: chicken, turkey, rabbit, beef.

Forecast

In most cases, correctional work with children with alalia brings excellent results: speech and its perception are gradually restored, intellectual retardation ceases to be noticeable. However, successful treatment can only be predicted by correlating:

• severity of pathology;
• speech states;
• how early the disease was diagnosed;

Children with sensory alalia recover faster than those with motor alalia.

Prevention

In order for your child to be healthy, prevention must begin even before birth. The expectant mother must be very careful and follow all doctor's recommendations to avoid serious injuries during pregnancy and childbirth.

It is worth following these tips:

• take medications and vitamins prescribed by your doctor;
• visit a gynecologist frequently during pregnancy;
• be attentive to your health and the health of your baby;
• if the due date has passed, then in no case should stimulation be postponed.

But that’s not all, since after the birth of a child, it is necessary to create favorable conditions for its development. Follow these simple rules, and your child will not lag behind other children in development, and you will not have any reason to worry.

Usually, children are very talkative. Their cheerful and incessant speech can give anyone a headache. But it happens that a child simply cannot speak, although he really wants to. One of the reasons for this dangerous silence is alalia. Let's take a closer look at what it is and how to treat it.

Alalia is a speech disorder in children, the mechanism of which is based on pathologies and insufficient development of the speech centers of the cerebral cortex. Pathological changes usually occur during intrauterine development or early childhood (up to three years), so they are difficult to diagnose. The disease is characterized by insufficient development or complete absence of speech.

Types of alalia

There are several classifications of the disease depending on the zone, degree and mechanism of the pathology, but the V.A. system is officially recognized and used. Kovshikova. According to it, alalia is divided into:

• Sensory.
• Mixed.

Sensory

This type is characterized by underdevelopment of speech due to pathologies in the speech-hearing analyzer. This part of the cerebral cortex is responsible for analyzing speech, and disturbances in its work lead to the inability to associate a certain image with its sound designation.

That is, the child hears, but cannot understand the speech addressed to him. Because of this, he may not respond when his name is called, and may not listen to someone else’s speech.

Sensory alalia is also expressed in:

• Disinhibition of speech. It is difficult to force a child to be silent.
• Mixing sounds that are similar in pronunciation.
• Echolalia.

Sick children may experience intellectual underdevelopment.

Motor alalia

The main reason for the appearance of this form of the disease is pathology of the cortical end of Broca's center, as well as the pathways of this area. As a result, there is insufficient development of expressive speech, expressed in difficulties in mastering speech skills. At the same time, the child understands what is being said to him.

This type is characterized by:

• Late speech development (at about 5 years of age).
• Violations of grammatical structure. The child does not agree on words in gender, number and case, confuses endings, etc.
• Small vocabulary.
• Attention disorder.
• Motor disinhibition.
• Intellectual development disorders.

Mixed

This form is also called total. It occurs when, for some reason, the entire sensorimotor area of ​​the cerebral cortex is affected. Sick children not only cannot reproduce speech, but also do not understand it.

Often, a child with total alalia cannot speak at all. In 100% of cases, the disease is accompanied by intellectual retardation.

Causes

Since alalia can occur at different stages of a child’s development, the causes are also different. So, for example, to organic lesions of the speech centers of the cerebral cortex. brain in the fetus can lead to:

• hypoxia;
• intrauterine infection;
• risk of miscarriage;
• severe toxicosis in the mother;
• mechanical injuries to the fetus (for example, from impacts and falls of a pregnant woman);
• chronic diseases of the mother;
• viral diseases suffered by a pregnant woman.

Even if the pregnancy proceeded normally, there is a high risk of injuring the child’s brain during childbirth if it is premature, fleeting or prolonged, and also due to:

• asphyxia;
• premature baby;
• intracranial damage;
• use of obstetric instruments;
• human factor and negligence (if the baby was dropped or hit).

Often, alalia, which occurs in the first year of life and beyond, has several causes. That is, not just one thing, but a whole system of pathologies or factors influence the development of the disease. This may include:

• somatic diseases (for example, malnutrition);
• encephalitis;
• meningitis;
• predisposition to alalia;
• past viral diseases (ARVI, influenza, etc.);
• rickets;
• operations using anesthesia;
• head injuries;
• lack of a normal basis for development (unfavorable conditions).

Symptoms and signs of alalia in a child

The symptoms of alalia directly depend on its type. There are only a few general aspects. Thus, the disease is always associated with a disorder between the verbal and nonverbal forms of the child’s mental activity.

If tasks for non-verbal activities are completed without difficulty (assemble an easy puzzle, arrange plot pictures in accordance with their sequence), then verbal ones are done with difficulty.

The delay manifests itself at all stages of speech development that alalia found. For example, babies develop humming and babbling late, and sometimes they may be completely absent. There is also tongue-tiedness, manifestations of egocentric speech, and poor vocabulary. Alalia can lead to disability.

Diagnostics

To diagnose alalia, you need to consult doctors such as:

• neurologist;
• pediatrician;
• otolaryngologist;
• psychologist.

In rare cases, a visit to a neurosurgeon is required. The consultation helps to identify the peculiarities of the child’s speech development.

First of all, anamnesis is collected, including standard questions about the condition of the mother during pregnancy and the child. Differential diagnosis is also necessary in order to exclude other diseases of the speech apparatus.

To detect brain damage, you will need to conduct one of the tests, for example:

• X-ray examination;
• echoencephalography;

If a child is diagnosed with sensory alalia, it is necessary to exclude hearing loss. For this purpose, otoscopy, audiometry and some other studies are performed.

Treatment and correction

The most effective results in the treatment of alalia were shown by:

• Speech therapy correction.
• Massage.
• Microcurrent reflexology and physiotherapy.

Neurologists and speech therapists can also prescribe drug therapy from a course of drugs:

• Cortexina;
• Cogituma;
• Gammalon;
• Ceraxon;
• vitamins B12 and B15

However, the effectiveness of drugs on patients with alalia has not been proven.

In this video clip, a professional speech therapist conducts classes with a child suffering from motor alalia:

Speech therapy correction and massage

Corrective action must be comprehensive and carried out both at home and in specialized sanatoriums or preschool institutions.

Corrective work for alalia involves classes on the development of all aspects of speech, for example:

• stimulation of speech activity;
• vocabulary formation;
• development of phrasal and coherent speech;
• lesson on sound pronunciation and grammatical design of statements;
• logorhythmics;

Speech therapy massage includes techniques for articulatory muscles. The manipulations are carried out with a probe, and the final effect is aimed at normalizing the tone of the speech muscles.

Microcurrent reflexology and physiotherapy

As additional corrective measures, your doctor may prescribe:

• laser therapy;
• magnetic therapy;
• hydrotherapy;
• electrophoresis;
• Electrical stimulation;

All these measures are aimed at activating and stimulating the speech areas of the cerebral cortex.

Clinics in Moscow and St. Petersburg

In Moscow and St. Petersburg there are all the necessary services for the treatment of alalia. Moreover, the procedures can be carried out both in a free hospital and in paid private clinics.

In Moscow, treatment can be obtained in such paid clinics as:

• Dobromed;
• SM-Clinic;
• NEARMEDIC;
• ProfMedHelp;
• K+31;
• Gull;
• Family;
• ORIS;
• ONMED;
• Muscovy;
• DOES NOT HURT;
• and others;

On average, a consultation will cost between 1000-2000 thousand rubles.

In St. Petersburg, for advice you can contact:

• Mokhov Institute of Osteopathy;
• Doctor+;
• BaltMed Harbor;
• Phoenix-Med;
• Aqua Doctor;
• Quantum Satis;
• Healthy age;
• others;

Approximate cost of consultation: up to 2 thousand rubles.

Despite the fact that alalia is a disease associated with disorders in the speech center of the cerebral cortex, it is quite treatable. If you diagnose the disease early and create all the conditions necessary for the normal development of the child, you can restore his speech to normal.

Today in Moscow and St. Petersburg there are many free and private clinics that are ready to help make your child healthy.

Prevention

Prevention of alalia must begin before the birth of the child. The mother must do everything to avoid birth trauma:

• be constantly monitored by a gynecologist;
• Monitor your pregnancy closely:
• take vitamins and prescribed medications;
• do not delay stimulation if the due date has already approached;

After the birth of a child, it is necessary to ensure its normal development. To do this, it is recommended to visit doctors (therapists, neurologists, otolaryngologists) as scheduled or necessary, as well as work with it at home and protect the brain from damage.

Forecast

In most cases, correctional work with children with alalia brings excellent results: speech and its perception are gradually restored, intellectual retardation ceases to be noticeable. However, successful treatment can only be predicted by correlating:

• severity of pathology;
• speech states;
• how early the disease was diagnosed;

Children with sensory alalia recover faster than those with motor alalia.

Alalia is a severe pathology of the child’s body, in which serious disturbances in speech are observed, provoked by damage to the cerebral cortex. Alalia in children, the symptoms of which will be discussed below, is relatively rare. This is why parents do not know how to deal with the disease. It is worth noting that the pathology can be corrected and treated if the patient is dealt with systematically.

The disease is defined by speech therapists and therapists as a problem in the formation of articulate speech. The occurrence of this pathology is caused by damage to the part of the brain responsible for the processes of formation and reproduction of the speech stream.

The main symptom of the disease is its systematic nature: it is not difficult to trace the impairment of speech function at all levels (phonetic, lexical and grammatical). It is difficult for a child to reproduce not only individual sounds, but also words and entire sentences.

Sometimes there is no response to someone else’s speech at all. The disease does not appear suddenly if the baby previously spoke normally and had no problems pronouncing phonemes. This phenomenon is characteristic of another childhood pathology – aphasia. In the case of alalia, they speak of an initial lesion of the speech center.

Alalia is not widespread. It occurs in only 1% of children aged one to three years. Experts emphasize that alalia occurs almost twice as often among boys.

To date, the issue of the occurrence of alalia has been studied quite deeply. Doctors, through in-depth and detailed research, have discovered the following factors under the influence of which pathology can develop:

• severe and very frequent toxicosis, an attempt to terminate a pregnancy or the threat of miscarriage, a pregnant woman falling with abdominal bruises;
• infection of the fetus during development inside the womb;
• the presence of a number of chronic diseases in the expectant mother: hypertension or hypotension, pulmonary insufficiency;
• premature or, conversely, prolonged labor, asphyxia of the newborn, instrumental intervention by doctors;
• exposure of the baby in the first years of his life to such factors as encephalitis, operations using general anesthesia, inflammation of the hard or soft membranes of the brain, lack of contact with other people that would allow the development of speech.

In most cases, the baby is affected by several negative factors at once, provoking disturbances in the speech part of the brain. Indeed, with a complex influence, it is much more difficult for him to resume his normal functioning.

Classification and symptoms of alalia

Scientists have come up with several classifications of this disease. Each of them is based on a separate systematization factor: the area of ​​damage to the soft membranes, the degree of progression of the disease, the principle of development of the disease. But most often they use the system of scientist V.A. Kovshikova. It is considered universal and can be supplemented by others only to obtain a complete picture of the diagnosis. Analyzing this system, it is worth highlighting its three components: sensory, motor and mixed alalia.

Symptoms of motor alalia

If a sign of motor pathology is observed, then not only its speech manifestations will be characteristic, but also disturbances in the activity of the nervous system. Very often, parents note poor hand motor skills: the child cannot hold small objects, tie shoelaces, or put together puzzles. In addition, such children have poor memory. They are absent-minded, forgetful and often get irritated over small things. A baby who exhibits motor alalia gets tired very quickly and looks slightly sluggish. If the problem is addressed in time, these manifestations can be eliminated.

Symptoms of sensory alalia

A patient who suffers from this type of disease, although with difficulty, still responds to therapy. He is deprived of the ability to speak articulately, but at the same time he can perceive speech by ear and be aware of it. In the presence of sensory pathology, the symptoms of alalia in children will be as follows:

• high sensitivity of the hearing organs to sounds that are too sharp and loud;
• increased speech activity, despite the fact that speech is a set of unrelated sounds;
• frequent repetition of words and individual phonemes after surrounding people, often developing into an obsessive form;
• communication is carried out using facial expressions or active gestures;
• perception of speech and its understanding often depends on the situation and emotional balance;
• poor recognition of paronyms or consonant phrases;
• high distractibility and lack of interest on the part of a child with sensory alalia.

Very often, among children suffering from this form of pathology, there is increased sensitivity, vulnerability and isolation. This is explained by the fact that it is difficult for them to communicate with others. They believe that conversation is best avoided.

Mixed symptoms

If you have been diagnosed with a mixed type of alalia, which is also often called total, then you should work with your baby especially diligently. The fact is that a child with this form of pathology in all cases cannot reproduce speech in any of its manifestations. The cerebral cortex, which is responsible for the formation of syllables, individual words, and sentences, is completely damaged. It is important to understand that the patient not only cannot speak, but also does not understand what others say to him. Compared to the two previous types of pathology, this one is very difficult to treat, because it clearly shows mental retardation.

Examination of children with alalia

Analyzing the causes of the disease, we note that diagnosis is aimed primarily at studying existing damage to the soft membranes of the brain, as well as the degree of manifestation of these injuries. It should be carried out as early as possible; a number of different symptoms of alalia can already be traced at 3 years.

To study the problem completely, the patient must undergo a number of examinations, including electroencephalography (study of the activity of individual brain centers), as well as echoencephalography (search for pathologies using ultrasound). In some cases, it is also necessary to perform an otoscopy, which can be used to confirm or remove the diagnosis of sensory alalia in children, the symptoms and treatment of which were described above.

To do this, the ear canal and eardrum are examined. Using simple manipulations, the specialist sets the minimum pitch that the child can distinguish. Sometimes a pediatrician or psychologist must talk to the child to establish an accurate diagnosis.

Alalia correction

With the rapid development of modern technologies, including medicine, the prognosis for alalia in children is quite encouraging. Of course, much depends on the form of the disease, the age of the child and the wishes of the parents. If the pathology has not yet developed into an advanced form, standard treatment methods are suitable: massage, classes with a speech therapist, physiotherapy, classes with a teacher, or drug intervention.

Speech therapy correction and massage

With the help of simple movements and manipulations, you can improve the tone of the child’s facial muscles. The doctor performs acupressure, light stroking of individual areas of the forehead, cheekbones or neck. Sometimes you need to rub certain areas of your face to improve their external response. He can also recommend a set of facial exercises.

To stimulate the immune system and transfer the disease to the recessive stage, the body is often exposed to water. This can be either physical or chemical exposure. This therapy best helps children with general speech disorders.

Drug therapy

In some cases, it is necessary to use potent drugs. But this is quite dangerous, since the baby’s immune system is not very well developed.

Most often, doctors use the following nootropic drugs: Gammolon, Cogitum, Cortexin. Never practice self-medication. All medications must be prescribed exclusively by the attending physician. This therapy lasts on average 2-3 months.

Good results simply cannot be achieved without the participation of a speech therapist in the treatment process. It is he who will be able to prescribe suitable facial or linguistic gymnastics, choose interesting educational games and establish contact with the little patient. Thus, you can engage not only in facial expressions and mental development, but also improve fine motor skills of your hands.

How to practice at home on your own

You can practice at home to develop your child’s mental abilities. To do this, you should consult with a speech therapist or pediatrician so that they can recommend a set of exercises to perform daily. Similar lists can be found on the Internet. If you are not lazy and exercise at least 15-20 minutes a day, you can achieve good results.

Examples of exercises

The child should stick his tongue out and move it from side to side.

Cheek puffing

The baby should puff out his cheeks, as if he was very offended by someone.

It is necessary that he stretches his lips forward, connecting them, as if it were a small long tube.

The child should squint and smile, imagining how he is basking in the sun.

Let the baby imagine that he is a little bear sleeping in his house. And then melt water crept into it. Let him show how scared he was, then surprised and happy at the onset of warmth.

Sun

The child should imagine that the sun is shining brightly above him and look up. Now he needs to look at the flowers that have bloomed below.

Forecast and prevention of alalia

If your baby has already been diagnosed with this pathology, you should immediately consult a doctor so that the disease does not progress further. Consultation with a teacher, speech therapist, or psychologist can also help in this matter. The main thing is to reach the child, adapt him to the environment, stop the occurrence of complications and tune in to a positive prognosis.

It is often difficult for young parents to choose a school in which to educate their child. Here the opinions of experts also differ. Some insist on education in regular schools, because alalia is not defined as a disability. But on the other hand, will the teacher be able to find an approach to the child, will other children understand him, how will they perceive a peer who is different in his behavior?

There are separate speech schools where the child will not only receive knowledge, but also regularly study to improve the course of his illness using videos and methods.

• giving up any bad habits;
• transition to a balanced, healthy diet;
• timely treatment of any diseases that arise during pregnancy, as well as preventing the progression of chronic pathologies;
• visiting resorts, sanatoriums (can be replaced with frequent walks in the fresh air);
• refusal of self-medication with potent drugs.
• regular visits to the gynecologist.

Conclusion

If a child has been diagnosed with alalia, one of the most important tasks for his parents and educators will be the correct adaptation of the baby to the environment. This is necessary so that the disease does not begin to progress under the influence of emotional stress and stress. It is very important here not to cross the line between lack of communication, loneliness and, conversely, difficulties due to increased attention from others. Parents must understand that homeschooling, like working with a speech therapist, is a process that will take many years. But if you choose the right technique and have the desire, you can achieve significant success.

Alalia in children - in a strict sense, means the complete absence or pronounced deficiency of speech, which manifests itself with normal hearing and primarily intact intelligence, which allows children to successfully explore the world and learn. Frequent causes of this disease are damage during childbirth to areas of the left hemisphere of the brain that control language abilities, brain diseases or injuries suffered by the baby in infancy, in other words, in the pre-speech period.

Alalia is manifested by the late appearance of speech reactions, agrammatism, poverty of vocabulary, violations of syllabic structure, phonemic processes and defects in sound pronunciation. Determining the area of ​​brain damage is of great importance for identifying the form of alalia. So, for example, when the fronto-parietal part is injured, motor alalia can be diagnosed in a baby; if the temporal region is damaged, sensory alalia can be diagnosed. Different forms of speech deficiency are characterized by completely different clinical features and the children’s future capabilities. However, such a division of the disease is conditional, since in clinical practice there are combinations of manifestations of sensory and motor speech alalia.

Alalia symptoms

Impaired functioning of certain parts of the brain leads to the emergence of alalia in children, which can manifest itself as mild speech defects, moderate or severe disorders (the child does not speak until ten, sometimes up to twelve years, or his speech is limited to a rather poor vocabulary and is characterized by ungrammaticality, despite extensive training ).

Motor alalia in children is expressed:

- in a disorder of expressive speech against the background of a good understanding of addressed speech;

- in the delayed formation of phrasal speech, which begins to develop after the age of four;

- in the paucity of pre-speech stages, babbling is often completely absent.

This disease is accompanied by gross defects in grammatical structure, manifested in a lack of consistency of words in case, gender and number, rearrangement of syllables within a word, incorrect use of prepositions in speech, absence of verbal forms, etc.

Motor alalia in children is characterized by a pronounced paucity of vocabulary and is the foundation of learning skills disorders such as dysgraphia and dyslexia, spatial gnosis disorders and motor defects in the form of apraxia. In addition, alalia occurs in combination with focal and diffuse neurological symptoms, damage to the dominant hemisphere, which determines the possibility of expressive speech skills. A child with a similar pathology in his mental state often exhibits signs of psychoorganic syndrome of varying severity, which are manifested by impaired performance in combination with defects in intellectual development, attention disorder, and motor disinhibition.

Sensory speech alalia manifests itself in a deficiency in the understanding of addressed speech, a gross disorder of its phonetic aspect with a lack of separation of sounds. Children are characterized by difficulty and slowness in the formation of a comparison between a word and an object. They are unable to comprehend what is being said by their surroundings, as a result of which their expressive speech is very limited. Such children distort words, confuse sounds with similar pronunciations, do not listen attentively to the speech of the environment, do not respond to calls, but at the same time react to distracted noises. They experience echolalia, auditory attention is severely impaired, and at the same time, the intonation and timbre of speech remain unchanged. In mental development, manifestations of organic brain damage are observed; they can often be found in combination with mental underdevelopment.

Characteristics of alalia. The consequences of alalia can remain for a long time, often even a lifetime. In Alaliks, all speech components appear late. The grammatical structure and vocabulary, pronunciation are formed in a peculiar way, slowly and disharmoniously. By the end of infancy, babies can have a vocabulary of nine to 100 words, but this does not determine the prognosis of the disease. The vocabulary grows very slowly and at each stage of development is quite poor. In addition, distorted word constructions are characteristic:

— permutations (instead of “milk” - “mokolo”);

- perseveration - (instead of “hair” - “vovovosy”);

omissions (“moko”);

contamination (instead of the words “white and yolk” it turns out “white”).

Also, many researchers note a distortion of the syllabic structure of the word. The number of such distortions increases with speech development and as the baby gets tired. There are two types of agrammatisms: impressive and expressive. Alaliks with the motor form almost always exhibit expressive agrammatism, and with the sensory form, impressive agrammatism. The grammatical structure of speech is formed late, disharmoniously and does not have stages.

All forms of alalia are characterized by a discord between verbal and non-verbal structures of mental activity. Non-speech tasks are performed by the baby in accordance with the age period without significant difficulties (meaning and sequence of plot images, graphic analogies, etc.). A slowdown in the rate of speech formation is expressed by the delay in the onset of certain pre-speech stages. Simply put, humming, babbling, individual words and phrases in such babies are formed with a lag, and there is also a reduction in stages or complete absence. In addition to prolongation of the development of the function, there is a long-term preservation of previously mastered stages of speech formation: egocentric speech, substitution of speech with gestures or loud non-verbal screams. Poor vocabulary, agrammatism and tongue-tiedness are also often observed.

Often, children with alalia experience neurotic reactions, which are a response to the existing speech defect. In addition, children suffering from this pathology are characterized by increased fatigue, decreased attention and decreased performance. They have a secondary mental retardation. At different periods of speech formation, with motor alalia, there is a lack of fluency of speech and stuttering occurs.

Corrective work for alalia should take into account the specifics of the speech disorder, the child’s personality, his interests and compensatory potential. Much attention is paid to eliminating neurotic aspects in the child’s character and nurturing a conscious, purposeful personality.

Motor alalia

Motor speech alalia occurs due to damage to Broca's center, that is, the frontoparietal region of the brain. This pathology most often occurs in children exposed to overprotection from their close circle. Overprotection may be justified. For example, a baby, as a newborn or infant, suffered a serious illness or was injured due to a difficult birth. In such families, children are characterized by excessive stubbornness, increased irritability and capriciousness.

Characteristics of motor alalia.

Motor alalia is manifested by a lag in the development of motor skills of the articulatory apparatus. It is quite difficult for children to make articular movements: raising their tongue up and holding it in that position, licking their lips, etc. In addition, a child suffering from motor alalia lacks self-care skills: tying shoelaces, fastening buttons independently. Movement disorder is also observed. Sick children are unable to jump on one leg, cannot walk along a log, more often stumble and fall, and are unable to move rhythmically to music. The speech of children suffering from motor alalia is characterized by several stages of speech development: from the absolute absence of speech to extensive speech with the presence of small deviations.

The speech of children with alalia of the first stage is completely incomprehensible to the average listener, for example, “you bang” means that the cup fell. To understand a child’s statements, it is necessary to take into account the specific situation, his gestures and facial expressions. Often children with this pathology are not able to express their own feelings using words or indicate what they need.

The second stage of speech development is characterized by the emergence of the ability to express some observations in a form that is clearer to the environment, for example, “tyya kutil syaik,” which means: “dad bought a ball.”

Children with the third stage of speech development use more detailed phrases containing lexical and grammatical errors.

A feature of this form of alalia is that children understand the speech addressed to them. They are able to select the desired picture of an object or living creature that the parent asks to show. Sick children understand only the lexical meaning of words and are not able to perceive their endings, prepositions and prefixes.

Due to children’s adequate response to adults’ requests and their fulfillment of simple instructions, there is a danger of missing and causing an illness. After all, parents believe that since their child understands everything, but does not speak, therefore, he is simply lazy.

Diagnosis of motor alalia is based on working with the child, when his speech potential is revealed. To clarify and supplement the diagnosis, an electroencephalogram is used. The child's hearing abilities and intellectual development are also checked.

Correction of alalia is aimed, first of all, at developing the mechanisms of speech activity, creating a speech base in the baby, which in the future will allow speech to develop spontaneously and form into a system. At all stages of correction, significant attention should be paid to developing the child’s knowledge about the environment in accordance with his age norm.

Motor alalia, its prognosis depends on the timeliness of diagnosis, the severity of the underlying pathology, the degree of speech impairment, the presence of competent correctional and treatment and rehabilitation work.

Sensory alalia

Children suffering from sensory alalia have the ability to form active speech and intact hearing. However, such children are characterized by a gap between the meaning and sound of words, as a result of which speech understanding suffers. Children do not understand speech, and therefore do not use it, which provokes the occurrence of accompanying disorders: difficulty establishing contacts with the environment, distortion of visual perception, slowdown in mental development.

Often, sick children are given an incorrect diagnosis; for example, they may be diagnosed with or. Due to an erroneous diagnosis, the corrective work carried out will be inadequate.

A child with a sensory form of alalia is inattentive to sounds; he may hear quiet sounds, or may not react at all to acoustic stimuli. Such kids have great difficulty learning individual words. It is difficult for them to store them in memory. The passive vocabulary of children with this pathology is enriched very slowly; there is a dissociation between the designated object and the understanding of the meaning of the word that denotes it.

Children are often better able to perceive surrounding speech in the morning, since immediately after sleep the ability of the cerebral cortex to function is much higher. As fatigue increases, children's understanding of speech deteriorates significantly. Less common are cases where a child perceives speech better in the evening, since after a night's rest an inhibitory background may act.

Children's understanding of speech does not improve with increasing speech volume, which makes it possible to distinguish children with the sensory form of alalia from hearing-impaired children. Strong stimuli provoke the appearance of extremely protective inhibition in the brain, as a result of which underdeveloped cells are excluded from activity. Calm, quiet speech is perceived by a sick baby much better than loud speech or shouting. The use of hearing aids in alalik children also does not improve speech perception.

Often, children with this pathology have hyperacusis, expressed in increased susceptibility to sounds that are indifferent to the environment, for example, the sound of crumpling paper or dripping water. Typically, healthy people who hear such sounds do not react to them. The exception is if a person is tired or irritated.

Children suffering from alalia from the sensory form perceive such sounds acutely, as a result of which they react painfully to them: they express anxiety and complaints about ear pain or headaches, and cry.

Alalik children are characterized by high speech activity, manifested by logorrhea, in which the baby incoherently repeats all the words known to him. The baby, not understanding the meaning, pronounces words and phrases that he heard earlier or at the moment, and the words and phrases spoken in this way are not recognized by the children and are not reinforced.

A baby with sensory alalia can listen with delight to his own speech and voice intonations. Alalik's speech is accompanied by lively facial expressions and gestures. The speech itself is characterized by expressive intonation.

Sensory alaliks are not able to control their own speech. Their statements are erroneous in content and not accurate in form. Quite often it is difficult to understand their “fiery” speech. Paraphrasy (substitution) is present in large quantities. Speech is also filled with omissions, connecting parts of different words with each other. The speech of a sensory alalik, in general, is characterized by increased speech activity, which occurs against the background of reduced attention to what others say and a lack of control over one’s speech. The speech of sensory alaliks cannot be used as a means of communication.

In addition to the listed symptoms, personality disorders are observed in children with a sensory form of alalia; various behavioral difficulties, secondary mental retardation. Speech skills can serve neither as a regulator nor as a self-regulator of the behavioral actions and activities of a sick child.

Corrective work for alalia, first of all, should take into account that in sensory alalia the ability to develop speech is not affected; their ability to learn speech based on hearing is affected. This is the main specificity of correctional work.

Sensory alalia and its prognosis are directly dependent on the severity of the disease and the timeliness of the start of correctional work. With competent and adequate intervention from doctors, regular speech therapy classes, as well as appropriate actions from those close to them, children master speech skills at the everyday level, which will provide an opportunity for communicative interaction, learning and knowledge of the world.

Alalia in children

The primary manifestations of alalia, regardless of its form, become apparent in children at the age of two, when areas of the brain are developed to some extent, and children are trying to pronounce words. If treatment is not started in a timely manner, this disease will continue to develop in adolescents.

Significant signs of alalia in children include:

- movement disorder;

- increased irritability;

- misunderstanding of adult speech;

— lack of basic self-care skills;

— errors in cases and declensions, illegibility in numbers;

- slow mental development;

— communicative interaction with adults at the level of gestures.

Alalia is an insidious disease. Often, children, not understanding what the environment is saying, begin to move away from them, distance themselves and become uncommunicative, which can lead to an incorrect diagnosis. Often such children are attributed to autism or mental or mental retardation. In addition, sometimes it is not possible to determine the level of hearing.

Therefore, first of all, the task of timely identification of the problem falls on the parents’ shoulders. And to do this, it is necessary to understand the stages of speech development in children.

Also, a significant sign of a speech development defect is too slow development of speech skills, slow progress or its complete absence for a long time.

Differential diagnosis of alalia is based on several comparison criteria presented below:

- with the motor form of alalia, speech perception is intact at the perceptual level, but with the sensory form of alalia, it is deeply impaired;

— in motor alalik children, speech understanding corresponds to their age norm, and in sensory alalik children, speech understanding is impaired, but may improve slightly with visual perception of the articulation of the speaking subject;

— the hearing of children with the motor form of alalia is preserved, but with the sensory form it is impaired;

- motor alalia is characterized by the absence of echolalia; with sensory alalia, on the contrary, echolalia is present;

- motor alaliks have difficulty repeating a word or phrase, sensory alaliks repeat without difficulty, but do not realize the meaning of the spoken word;

- children with the motor form of alalia strive for non-verbal and verbal communication, children with the sensory form of alalia either do not want or simply cannot engage in communication.

Work with children with alalia, especially speech exercises, should be carried out in the form of a game. Only in this form will the correction be noticeable and will not unnecessarily tire the baby. Classes with a speech therapist should focus on developing memory and attention, the ability to distinguish one object from another, the ability to correlate and generalize objects.

Also, physical activity and any exercises that help develop fine motor skills are indispensable for the development of speech skills.

Alalia treatment

In some cases, alalia may go away without treatment as the baby grows older. But it is often impossible to do without medical and speech therapy intervention. If the correction of alalia is carried out competently and at a sufficient level, if it is started in a timely manner, then speech skills are fully formed, the baby’s mental abilities also improve, and he adapts better in the real world. Timely correction allows children to further establish contacts with peers and adequately interact with adults.

The examination should be carried out comprehensively, with direct interaction between a pediatrician, neurologist and speech therapist. The most important thing is to identify the degree of brain damage, since the severity of the pathology depends on this.

A mild degree of alalia is limited to speech therapy classes and home exercises, which allow you to quickly teach the baby words and grammar. Speech therapy correction of various forms of alalia helps to expand the vocabulary and makes the baby’s speech more literate. However, this type of treatment is only effective with systematic exercise.

In severe cases, when there are severe lesions of the speech centers, therapy may be ineffective.

To achieve maximum effectiveness, complex therapy is used to treat alalia, which includes three components:

— speech therapy classes;

— speech therapy massage (impact on the articulatory muscles to normalize the tone of the speech muscles, which facilitates the pronunciation of sounds);

— microcurrent reflexology, the purpose of which is to activate the areas of the cerebral cortex responsible for the desire to speak, diction, vocabulary, etc.

The effectiveness of drug treatment has not been scientifically proven, but work on the formation of speech skills is carried out against the background of drug therapy aimed at activating the maturation of brain components. Physiotherapy, laser therapy, and hydrotherapy are also used. With alalia of any form, it is important to begin work with the development of general and fine motor skills, the formation of cognitive mental functions, such as memory, mental activity, attention. Of great importance in the treatment of alalia are classes and work with children with alalia at home using visual materials.

The information presented in this article is intended for informational purposes only and cannot replace professional advice and qualified medical care. If you have the slightest suspicion that your child has this disease, be sure to consult a doctor!

Many mothers are distrustful of the advice of relatives and friends to take their child to the doctor for speech delays, seeing the baby’s long silence. Other parents are sure that the baby’s first words are a sure sign of proper speech development, but this is an erroneous judgment. By brushing aside problems in this way, you may not notice alalia - a violation of speech development.

Nature of the disease

Alalia in children is a disease that occurs when the areas of the cerebral cortex responsible for speech are damaged, which leads to poor and incorrect formation of speech activity.

Alalia is accompanied by a violation of all components of speech at once - both lexical and grammatical. Violation of the speech centers could be caused by damage during fetal development or in the early development of the child (up to three years).

Alalia has its own prerequisites. Most likely, there was organic damage to the brain in one of its parts: Wernicke’s center, responsible for speech perception, or Broca’s center, responsible for speech motor skills.

Based on the source of damage, alalia is classified into two types: sensory and motor. Let's consider each type separately.

Alalia: types and signs

Motor

Broca's center is responsible for the proper development of speech. Violation of its functions leads to motor alalia. Due to excessive parental care, the child is most susceptible to this condition: increased care is often associated with illness in infancy or problems during childbirth. The child becomes stubborn, capricious and irritable. Difficulties with self-care in such children are a clear external characteristic. It is difficult for them to get dressed or tie their shoelaces, tie a bow, and fasten buttons - tasks that are sometimes impossible for a child with impaired motor function. Coordination of movements is also impaired: children cannot maintain balance, jump on one leg, often fall and do not catch the musical rhythm in the dance. Other movement disorders are also noticeable.

The development of speech with motor alalia is divided into several levels: from the child’s inability to pronounce words to slight deviations in the ability to construct a detailed phrase (see also:). Levels are classified based on the individual characteristics of the child.

A child with motor alalia understands the words that are spoken to him (we recommend reading:). Among the many pictures, he easily points to the one he was asked to show. Difficulties begin when understanding cases and quantities: the child cannot show with examples where “the picture hangs” and where “the pictures hang.” Thus he perceives the word and not the form. Prepositions or prefixes also remain outside perception. Specialized kindergartens and schools are designed to correct such defects, but regular schools are not suitable for children with such a disease.

Sensory

Sensory alalia is a disorder of speech understanding that is associated with damage to the Wernicke center of the cerebral cortex. The child does not speak because he does not understand the words, he is not able to connect them with objects (more details in the article:). In such situations, the child is often misdiagnosed and classified as hard of hearing, even though the hearing aid is absolutely healthy.

Sensory alalia is characterized by the phenomenon of echolalia. The child easily repeats the words he just heard. For example, the child reproduces a question addressed to him in the form of a repetition of this very question.

This type of disease is difficult to cure, despite the fact that children with sensory alalia are a rare phenomenon. Little progress in treatment is achieved by educating such children in specialized schools.

How to spot something wrong?

Familiarity with the norms of speech development will help to recognize the disease, although each individual case of alalia is individual. The average child should master speech activity in the following order:

• at two months the child develops a characteristic hum;
• in 3-4 – babble;
• 6-8 months – first words;
• By the age of one year, a child should be able to construct entire phrases.

If the vocabulary of a child under two years old is limited to a few words, you need to think about it. Parents who notice serious deviations from the norm should contact specialists for advice.

Underdeveloped speech is a characteristic feature of alalia. Pronunciation of only the first or only the last syllables (pa - in the word dad, ko - in the word milk), as well as poor development of speech in general and the lack of positive dynamics are also included here. These symptoms give a signal to parents to begin an examination in order to cure their beloved child as soon as possible.

Treatment methods

Medical and pedagogical methods

Positive results in the treatment of sensory and motor alalia are achieved only by complex methods that involve psychologists, doctors and experienced teachers. Children with similar diseases are treated in specialized sanatoriums, hospitals, kindergartens and correctional centers.

Treatment with drugs, which promotes the active and successful maturation of brain cells and connections, is accompanied by additional procedures that help correct disorders of the brain centers: magnetic therapy, electrophoresis, IRT and others. The combined development of gross and manual motor skills, as well as the development of memory, attention and thinking are important conditions for successful treatment.

The systematic nature of the disease itself also determines the corresponding development of all speech skills.

• With motor alalia, doctors help increase speech activity, form active and passive vocabulary, and develop coherent speech. Logorhythmics included in the program, like speech therapy massage, is aimed at stimulating the development of speech skills (we recommend reading:).
• With sensory alalia, the main achievements will be the discrimination of words and word forms, the ability to compare them with actions and objects, and the perception of speech phrases. Teachers actively form an understanding of the grammatical structure of speech. With the correct development of acoustic and phonemic perception, it is possible to improve the quality of speech and further independent speech activity (see also:).

Both forms of alalia are treated more successfully if the child is taught to write and read at the same time. This form helps to better remember what has been covered and improves control over oral speech.

Let us mention that timely diagnosis and diagnosis guarantee the maximum effectiveness of treatment. You should not postpone a visit to specialists if you notice characteristic symptoms.

Independent activities with a child

The extraordinary plasticity of the child's brain and its ability to quickly adapt in most even the most severe cases ensures a complete recovery from the disease. The ability of individual healthy brain cells to take over the functions of non-working areas is what makes healing possible.

The best thing a parent of a child with alalia can do on their own is to develop the baby’s fine motor skills, which are directly related to the activity of the speech areas of the brain.

Each child with alalia undergoes treatment under the careful supervision of doctors, and the technique in each individual case will be individual. At home, parents can also provide all possible assistance in treating their beloved baby.

• Both doctors and parents have long known that the development of fine motor skills is directly related to speech activity. The more often parents work with children’s fingers, helping to make them dexterous and skillful, the faster and better the baby’s speech will develop.
• Massaging your fingers in a playful way will have great benefits for the body.
• Finger games and gymnastics will help stimulate the development of fine motor skills. Simple activities - for example, sorting cereals and legumes, folding puzzles and mosaics, stringing beads - will promote active brain function and train little fingers.

Today you can find a large number of video materials with training and activities for alalia, which parents can use at home. It is necessary to use all possible methods to cure the child as quickly as possible.