Symptoms of motor and sensory alalia in a child: examination, treatment, homework. Alalia in children - symptoms

- gross underdevelopment or complete absence of speech caused by organic lesions of the cortical speech centers of the brain that occurred in utero or in the first 3 years of a child's life. With alalia, late appearance of speech reactions, poverty of vocabulary, agrammatisms, violation of syllabic structure, sound pronunciation and phonemic processes are noted. A child with alalia needs a neurological and speech therapy examination. Psychological-medical-pedagogical impact in case of alalia includes drug therapy, development of mental functions, lexico-grammatical and phonetic-phonemic processes, coherent speech.

General information

Alalia is a deep immaturity of the speech function, due to organic damage to the speech areas of the cerebral cortex. With alalia, speech underdevelopment is systemic, that is, there is a violation of all its components - phonetic-phonemic and lexical-grammatical. Unlike aphasia, in which there is a loss of previously existing speech, alalia is characterized by the initial absence or severe limitation of expressive or impressive speech. Thus, they speak of alalia if organic damage to the speech centers occurred in the prenatal, intranatal or early (up to 3 years) period of the child's development.

Alalia is diagnosed in about 1% of preschoolers and 0.6-0.2% of school-age children; at the same time, this speech disorder occurs 2 times more often in boys. Alalia is a clinical diagnosis, which in speech therapy corresponds to the speech conclusion of OHP (general underdevelopment of speech).

Causes of alalia

The factors leading to alalia are diverse and can affect different periods of early ontogenesis. So, in the antenatal period, fetal hypoxia, intrauterine infection (TORCH syndrome), the threat of spontaneous abortion, toxicosis, falls of a pregnant woman with fetal trauma, chronic somatic diseases of the expectant mother (arterial hypotension or hypertension, heart or lung failure).

Complications of childbirth and perinatal pathology serve as a natural result of a burdened course of pregnancy. Alalia may be the result of asphyxia of newborns, prematurity, intracranial birth trauma during premature, transient or prolonged labor, the use of instrumental obstetric aids.

Among the etiopathogenetic factors of alalia that affect the first years of a child's life, encephalitis, meningitis, TBI, somatic diseases leading to CNS depletion (hypotrophy) should be distinguished. Some researchers point to a hereditary, family predisposition to alalia. Frequent and prolonged diseases of children in the first years of life (ARVI, pneumonia, endocrinopathy, rickets, etc.), operations under general anesthesia, unfavorable social conditions (pedagogical neglect, hospitalism syndrome, lack of speech contacts) exacerbate the effect of the leading causes of alalia.

As a rule, in the anamnesis of children with alalia, the participation of not one, but a whole complex of factors leading to minimal brain dysfunction - MMD can be traced.

Organic damage to the brain causes a slowdown in the maturation of nerve cells, which remain at the stage of young immature neuroblasts. This is accompanied by a decrease in the excitability of neurons, the inertia of the main nervous processes, and the functional exhaustion of brain cells. Lesions of the cerebral cortex in alalia are not pronounced, but multiple and bilateral in nature, which limits the independent compensatory possibilities of speech development.

Alalia classification

Over the years of studying the problem, many classifications of alalia have been proposed depending on the mechanisms, manifestations and severity of speech underdevelopment. Currently, speech therapy uses the classification of alalia according to V.A. Kovshikov, according to which they distinguish:

expressive(motor) alalia
impressive(sensory) alalia
mixed(sensory-motor or motor-sensory alalia with a predominance of impaired development of impressive or expressive speech)

The origin of the motor form of alalia is based on an early organic lesion of the cortical section of the motor speech analyzer. In this case, the child does not develop his own speech, but the understanding of someone else's speech remains intact. Depending on the damaged area, afferent motor and efferent motor alalia are distinguished. With afferent motor alalia, there is a lesion of the postcentral gyrus (lower parietal sections of the left hemisphere), which is accompanied by kinesthetic articulatory apraxia. Efferent motor alalia occurs when the premotor cortex (Broca's center, posterior third of the inferior frontal gyrus) is affected and is expressed in kinetic articulatory apraxia.

With sensory alalia, the tasks are set 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, the grammatical structure of speech. As the vocabulary accumulates, the formation of subtle acoustic differentiations and phonemic perception, it becomes possible to develop the child's own speech.

Forecast and prevention of alalia

The key to the success of correctional work with alalia is its early (from 3-4 years old) onset, complex nature, systemic impact on all components of speech, the formation of speech processes in unity with the development of mental functions. With motor alalia, the speech prognosis is more favorable; with sensory and sensorimotor alalia - indefinite. To a large extent, the degree of organic brain damage affects the prognosis. In the process of schooling, children with alalia may develop writing disorders (dysgraphia and dyslexia).

The prevention of alalia in children includes the provision of conditions for the favorable course of pregnancy and childbirth, the early physical development of the child. Corrective work to overcome alalia helps prevent the occurrence of secondary intellectual insufficiency.

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 cerebral cortex of the child. Early diagnosis of 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 the child understands everything and fulfills requests, but does not speak at all or does it badly. The underdevelopment of speech or its complete absence is called alalia.

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

The reasons for which alalia appears have not yet been clarified.. However, risk factors are known, these include:

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

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

pronounces sounds incorrectly;
has a poor vocabulary;
does not understand the speech of other people;
violates the grammatical structure of speech;
has difficulty learning to read and write.

In addition to these signs, motor disorders, psychopathological and neurological manifestations are observed in alalik children. The set of symptoms is individual.

In total, 3 types of alalia are distinguished: 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 prescribed.

The disease is very dangerous, it affects the part of the cerebral cortex that is responsible for the correct analysis of speech. 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:

Disinhibition of speech, i.e., the child talks a lot in "his" language, incomprehensible to others.
Intellectual underdevelopment.
Substitution of letters in simple words.
Speech is difficult to hear.
Excessive impulsivity and activity, combined with depression and isolation.
Pronunciation of several words as one.
The child is not able to mentally connect the name of the object and its image.

motor alalia

The second type of pathology is motor alalia. The speech of the baby develops very slowly, it is difficult for him to master the skills of speech. 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:

The speech of the child is formed quite late, he can pronounce the first words at 4 years.
Wrong construction of the sentence. Words are used in the wrong number, gender and case.
Poor vocabulary.
The child is inattentive. As a rule, sedentary or, conversely, hyperactive.
Poor coordination of movements.
Aggressiveness, isolation, not wanting to talk.

With this form of the disease, there are violations that are characteristic of both of the above species.

The connection between the brain and the speech apparatus is disrupted, the ability to perceive someone else's speech.

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.

The progression of alalia can lead to mental retardation, so the disease must be treated.

After the diagnosis is made, parents wonder if alalia can be cured in children. Treatment should be complex, it depends on the degree of development of the pathology and its type.

We note right away that alalia is poorly treatable, but there is always a chance of a full recovery. Therefore, you need to be patient and help the 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 older ages. 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. Recovery requires a lot of effort.

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

Developing classes 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 exercises aimed at developing fine motor skills. These are modeling, ball games, finger gymnastics, mosaic, cutting, folding and unfolding toys (sorter, pyramids, nesting dolls), drawing.

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

Any program for speech correction provides for the memorization of verses.

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

You should start by repeating lines and pronouncing them. 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, a lot of learned rhymes will accumulate that need to be repeated. Gradually speech will become clear and correct.

guess a riddle

In folk pedagogy, children's riddles have always been used.. They introduce the child to the world around them, broaden their 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 riddle, which will allow the child to understand it faster.

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

The most useful are those riddles where there are 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 speech 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 characters are present.

For example, "skinny weak Koschei is dragging a box of vegetables." At first, the pronunciation speed will be slow, but over time it will become fast.

Play with your child in the mosaic, the definition of colors and sounds. Say all the names of items in the game aloud.

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

Is there a cure for alalia? Yes, although the treatment is long and difficult. It is very important to diagnose the pathology at an early stage.

If the child lags behind the norms of development, you should visit a neurologist. Sensory alalia is much easier to get rid of than motor alalia.

The development of the speech apparatus will allow the child to grow up as a full-fledged personality. How to treat alalia will tell a specialist. It is important not only to take the prescribed drugs, but also to deal with the child at home.

All classes should take place in a playful way and be easy in order to interest the baby. Be healthy!

Content

The first articulate sound, spoken word or sentence from a child is always a special event for parents. When they reach a more conscious age, children become very talkative and chatter incessantly. It also happens that the child grows up, but others begin to notice his speech problems. This phenomenon is a symptom of a childhood disease - alalia. The sooner the diagnosis is made and treatment is started, the more chances the baby has to restore articulate speech.

Alalia in children

General speech underdevelopment (OHP) or alalia is the absence of speech or its underdevelopment, taking into account good hearing and the normal development of the child's intellect. Organic disorders of the cortical parts of the brain lead to the occurrence of the phenomenon. Unlike aphasia (a disorder of early formed speech), alalia is characterized by a complete absence of expressive and impressive speech activity. Less often, such children have a poor vocabulary with inarticulate sounds.

Causes

Alalia is congenital or early acquired in the pre-speech period (in the first three years of a child's life, when there is an intensive formation of cells of the cerebral cortex). The following factors can lead to intrauterine organic disorders of the speech centers of the brain:

fetal asphyxia;
intrauterine infection of the child;
severe toxicosis during pregnancy;
the threat of spontaneous miscarriage;
chronic somatic diseases in the mother - hypotension, arterial hypertension, impaired lung function or heart failure.

In the anamnesis of children with this pathology, the participation of not one, but a number of factors provocateurs is often traced. Alalia can develop against the background of fetal hypoxia, aggravated by complications during childbirth, prematurity, premature delivery, or during intracranial trauma in a child due to improper use of instrumental obstetric devices.

Some studies have found a relationship between impaired development of the speech center and heredity. Long-term illnesses in children in the first years of life, operations using general anesthesia can lead to the appearance of alalia. Etiopathogenetic causes of alalia (factors that arose in the first years of a baby's life) include:

encephalitis;
meningitis;
traumatic brain injury;
complicated viral diseases - pneumonia, SARS, influenza;
rickets;
hypotrophy.

As a result of organic damage to the speech-motor analyzer, the child has a delayed maturation of neurons, which often remain neuroblasts - nerve endings formed at the embryonic stage. As a result of such disorders, the excitability of nerve endings, the inertia of the main processes of the brain, and functional exhaustion decrease.

Classification

There are several types of pathology, which are distinguished by the area of brain damage, the degree and mechanism of development. Official medicine divides the types of alalia according to the Kovshikov system into:

Motor pathology (Alalia motoria) - abnormal development of expressive speech. The child understands what is said to him, but it is difficult for him to pronounce the words himself. Motor alalia is divided into two more types, depending on the area of brain damage:
1. afferent - damage to the lower parietal parts of the left hemisphere with kinesthetic articular apraxia;
2. efferent - abnormal development of the premotor cortex (Broca's center) with kinetic articular apraxia.

Sensory deviations (Alalia sensoria) - underdevelopment of the impressive type of speech. Pathology occurs when the cortical department of Wernicke's center (posterior superior temporal gyrus) is damaged. The child hears others well, but does not understand their speech.
Auditory-speech type of deviations (sensory-motor alalia) - the entire sensorimotor region of the cerebral cortex is affected. Toddlers with such deviations not only cannot reproduce sounds, but also do not understand what adults are saying to them.

Alalia symptoms

The general clinical picture of the disease is characterized by the late appearance of speech reactions in a child, the scarcity of vocabulary, incorrect pronunciation and a violation of phonemic processes. Alalik children often have neurotic reactions to their incoherent speech, secondary delay in psychological development, and agrammatism.

They get tired faster than their peers, have reduced mobility and poor concentration. If the disease is not treated in time, in the process of schooling, alalia can turn into writing disorders - dysgraphia or dyslexia. In addition to the general symptoms, depending on the form of the pathology, there may be other signs of speech deviations.

Motor

The characteristic features of this type of pathology include the underdevelopment of primary speech manifestations. They will be noticeable from the very birth of the baby. Such children do not know how to walk, and their babbling is reduced to the monotonous pronunciation of individual sounds. According to the peculiarities of behavior, such babies can be hyperactive or, conversely, sedentary. Many of the Alaliks have a reduced concentration of attention, they get tired quickly.

As they grow older, these children have difficulty learning self-care skills – they cannot fasten buttons, lace up their shoes, and get dressed on their own. Neurological symptoms of motor alalia are expressed in the poor development of fine motor skills of the hands, poor coordination of movements, and awkwardness. Alalics often suffer from intellectual development, the gaps in which are filled in with the development of correct speech. Stuttering may occur against the background of non-verbal activity.

Phrase reserve in alaliki with motor pathology is very meager. New words are hard to remember. Such kids often insert phrases inappropriately, replace complex speech constructions with simple everyday terms. A characteristic feature of motor alalia is the predominance of nouns in the nominative case in the child's dictionary against the background of a sharp rejection of the use of other parts of speech. In advanced cases, with motor alalia, “babbling” phrases and onomatopoeia with active gestures and facial expressions in the child may slip instead of words.

touch

With this form of alalia, the leading symptom is a violation of the perception of the meaning of the speech of others against the background of good hearing in a child. The activity of babies with sensory alalia is increased, but their speech is a set of incomprehensible sounds, phrases, fragments of words. In the monologue of such patients there are:

multiple perseveration - obsessive repetition of syllables, letters, sounds;
paraphasia - the artificial creation of words;
echolalia - uncontrolled repetition of other people's words;
contamination - the combination of parts of different words into one whole;
elision - the omission of a syllable in a word or phrase in order to facilitate pronunciation.

Sensory alalia of a rough form is characterized by a complete lack of understanding of speech, but even if the child understands the meaning of what was said in a certain context of the phrase, then when the tempo of the voice changes, the order of words in the sentence changes, understanding is lost. Often such children use the technique of lip reading to perceive the words of adults. A gross violation of speech leads to secondary personality changes, intellectual retardation.

Diagnosis of alalia

Children with speech disorders need a consultation with a neurologist, otolaryngologist, speech therapist, psychologist. Each doctor, in order to make a diagnosis of alalia, must first conduct a series of diagnostic tests. A neurological examination consists of:

echoencephalography (EEG) - a non-invasive ultrasound method of computer diagnostics, which allows you to determine the presence of pathological processes or changes in the structure of the brain;
x-ray of the skull - necessary to detect damage to the cranium, hemorrhage;
An MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) of the brain helps doctors detect tumors, aneurysms, and certain nervous system problems.

To exclude hearing loss, the otolaryngologist may additionally prescribe other diagnostic tests: otoscopy (helps to examine the ear canal and eardrum), audiometry (assessment of hearing acuity) or other methods for assessing hearing functionality. The picture is complemented by neuropsychological diagnostics of speech-auditory memory, which is carried out with the help of special tests.

To draw up a complete understanding of the situation, the doctor should study the patient's perinatal history, ask the parents about the presence of any deviations in the behavior of the child under one year old. Specialists pay special attention to the development of the psychomotor and speech apparatus. To do this, tests are carried out for the comprehensibility of oral speech, lexical or grammatical structure, phonetic and phonemic processes, and articulatory motility. Differential diagnosis for alalia must be carried out in children with autism, oligophrenia, dysarthria.

Alalia treatment

Doctors approach the treatment of pathology in a complex manner. Methods of psychological and pedagogical correction are used, the child is sent to classes with a speech therapist, and medication is used. For alaliki in Russia, there are specialized preschool institutions, hospitals, centers for speech correction, programs for sanatorium and recreation.

Medical treatment

Treatment using drugs is carried out to stimulate the development of certain brain structures. Neotropic drugs are prescribed:

Gammalon is a drug that helps restore metabolic processes in the brain, remove toxic metabolic products. Gammalon ensures the normal dynamics of the formation of neurons, increases the productivity of thinking, improves memory. The tablets contain a minimal list of side effects, among which only stand out: nausea, insomnia, a slight increase in body temperature.
Cogitum - acetylaminosuccinic acid (an analogue of a biological compound contained in the brain) is presented as an active component. The drug normalizes the processes of formation of nervous activity, has a psychostimulating effect. The medicine is not prescribed until 7 years.
Cortexin is a powder for preparing a solution for intramuscular injection. The drug improves brain metabolism, reduces the amount of free radicals, improves concentration, memory, and increases learning ability. Cortexin is contraindicated in case of individual intolerance to the components of the composition.
Ceraxon is a clear liquid with a characteristic strawberry odor for oral administration. The drug has a wide spectrum of action: it prevents the formation of free radicals, prevents the death of neurons, restores damaged brain cell membranes, and reduces the rate of action of phospholipases. Due to the lack of clinical data, the drug is prescribed with caution up to 18 years.
Encephabol - increases metabolism in brain tissues, improves blood circulation, memory, speech perception. The drug is available in two forms - tablets and suspension for oral administration. The medicine can be used for monotherapy of alalia, starting from the age of two months.

Logopedic correction

An important role in the formulation of correct speech is played by the work of a speech therapist. Corrective action can be carried out both in specialized centers or preschool institutions, and in the form of private lessons. To achieve effectiveness, speech therapy classes are accompanied by home education of a sick child. The work of a speech therapist is aimed at:

stimulation of the child's speech activity;
the formation of a rich vocabulary;
development of coherent, articulate speech;
development of mental functions;
elimination of tongue-tied tongue;
restoration of articulatory movements;
formation of sound pronunciation and grammatically correct design of the statement;
comprehensive development of the child - teaching motor skills, understanding the meaning of what was said.

Physiotherapy treatment

Together with drug therapy and speech therapy, doctors will advise parents to undergo a course of physical therapy. Efficiency in the treatment of general speech underdevelopment is shown by:

Hydrotherapy - the procedure is based on the chemical, mechanical or temperature effects of water on the body. With alalia, general therapeutic baths, visits to baths or saunas, masks and applications with sea products, dousing or irrigating a child with sea water are recommended.
Laser therapy is a treatment using low-intensity light radiation. The procedure has an immunostimulating, vasodilating effect, increases the body's susceptibility to drug therapy. With alalia, laser blood irradiation is used.
General magnetotherapy is a physiotherapeutic effect on the whole body with a constant or pulsed magnetic field. The procedure improves metabolism and blood circulation, reduces the pain of nerve pulsations.
Decimeter therapy (DMW) is a method based on the influence of an electromagnetic field of ultrahigh frequency. UHF treatment helps with chronic diseases - pneumonia, bronchitis, inflammation of the middle ear.
Electrophoresis is a procedure for introducing drugs into the body through the skin of a person.
Transcranial electrical stimulation - the impact on the brain stem with an electric current. The procedure normalizes the work of nervous mechanisms, has a calming, neurotrophic effect.
Reflexology (IRT) is an impact on human reflex points located on the skin. The impact on the muscles is carried out with the help of needles, temperature, electric (electropuncture) or magnetic field. The procedure helps to start the self-healing system in the brain.

Video

Attention! The information presented in the article is for informational purposes only. The materials of the article do not call for self-treatment. Only a qualified doctor can make a diagnosis and give recommendations for treatment based on the individual characteristics of a particular patient.

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“Oh, my husband / brother / father spoke at 5 in general” - how often have you heard such phrases? Most mothers are anxiously waiting for their baby to say the first words, but for various reasons this may not happen. In such cases, doctors diagnose "alalia", which can be sensory and motor. What is motor alalia? Let's consider in more detail.

Description of the disease

Motor alalia (hereinafter simply alalia) is a pathology in which expressive speech is poorly developed. This underdevelopment consists in difficulties in mastering the basic skills of speech (grammatical structure, vocabulary, etc.) with its normal perception. That is, the child speaks poorly or does not speak at all, but understands your speech normally.

The mechanism of pathology is based on the disorder of the analytical-synthetic function of the motor speech analyzer. The main reason for the appearance of such a disorder is the pathology of Broca's center and the pathways related to it.

Alalia occurs 2.5 times more often in boys than in girls. If we count from the total number of preschool children, then this is approximately 0.2–0.6%.

Signs and symptoms of motor alalia

The development of speech in alaliki can be different, it is affected by:

age at which the disease was discovered;
the degree of brain damage;
general development of the child;
work of parents with the sick;

It happens that the alalik is silent for a long time, and then his speech acquires rapid development and is quickly corrected. It happens the other way around: a child roams from infancy, begins to speak early, but his speech remains meager for a long time. Another development is also possible.

The main symptoms and signs of pathology are listed below, for ease of perception, divided into speech and non-speech.

Speech

In fact, alaliki have everything they need to speak normally. However, they cannot take advantage of these opportunities. This is expressed in:

Literal paraphasia (when a sound in a word is replaced by another).
Scattered and incessant speech (perseveration).
Loss of sounds from a word (elision).
Vocabulary restrictions. For the most part, this applies to verbs and verbal forms.
Replacing words with similar sound or meaning.
Combining syllables of words (contamination). For example: codet - the cat is coming.
Mismatched words.
Falling out during the conversation of prepositions.

Non-speech

Non-verbal symptoms of alalia may not always appear and not all at once.

From the side of the nervous system, the symptoms are expressed:

Violations of the movements of the muscles of the face (apraxia).
Balance disorders.
Awkwardness, because of which children often fall / hit against obstacles.
Violations of spatial gnosis.
Minimal brain dysfunction.

Psychopathological symptoms include:

General developmental delay.
Disinhibition and impulsiveness in actions.
Increased aggression and nervousness.
Poor adaptation to environmental conditions.
Reduced attention.
Rapid fatigue.

Diagnostics

First of all, to diagnose the disease, you need to visit a speech therapist. The main type of diagnosis used in this case is differential. It helps to distinguish the motor form of alalia from the sensory one.

Diagnosis can be made by evaluating:

Speech perception, which should not be severely impaired.
Understanding speech, again, should not be severely impaired.
Auditory perception. Must be saved.
No echolalia.
Difficulty repeating what you hear.
Desire to speak.
Active use of facial expressions and gestures.
Compensation for the shortcomings of speech with onomatopoeia, melody or "sound gestures".
Dynamic improvements.

It is also considered at what level is:

active and passive dictionaries;
grammatical structure of speech;
sound pronunciation;
syllabic structure;
phonemic perception;

In addition to visiting a speech therapist, alaliki need a consultation:

neurologist;
otolaryngologist;
psychologist;
neurosurgeon;

To assess the degree of brain damage, the doctor may prescribe:

echoencephalography;
radiography;

Additional tests may be ordered to rule out comorbidities.

Treatment and correction

Corrective work should be comprehensive and include:

drug therapy. Many speech therapists deny the effectiveness of such treatment, since there are no reliable data. The child may be given:
1. Gammalon;
2. Cortexin;
3. Cogitum;
4. Vitamins B12, B15;
speech therapy classes. They also include home gymnastics and classes with a doctor aimed at developing speech.
We recommend watching a video session with a speech therapist:

Massage. Helps to normalize the tone of the facial muscles.

As an additional treatment, reflexotherapy, magnetotherapy, UHF, electrical stimulation, laser therapy, hydrotherapy, IRT, etc. can be used.

Forecast and prevention

Treatment of motor alalia is slower than in children with a sensory form of the same severity. However, the prognosis can be favorable if you do not delay the start of corrective work, take it with the child daily and comprehensively. It all depends on the degree of brain damage. If it is not strong, then the child's speech will be restored completely.

Disease is always easier to prevent than to cure. To avoid the appearance of motor alalia, you need:

Ensure the normal course of pregnancy. For this:

constantly visit a gynecologist and strictly follow his recommendations;
take all tests on time;
protect yourself from traumatic activities as much as possible;
wear a mask when visiting the hospital to minimize the risk of contracting infectious diseases;
give up unnecessary loads;
start doing gentle exercises;

To ensure the child's normal development:

visit the pediatrician and other doctors as needed/schedule;
do not refuse vaccinations;
engage in developmental exercises with the child;
minimize injuries as much as possible (close sharp corners, remove traumatic objects, etc.);

Results

In recent years, this diagnosis has been increasingly made in children due to its universality and wide symptomatology. However, not all "silent" can be attributed to alalik, which many doctors forget about. So if your child is given alalia, but he does not have severe disorders, and a proper examination has not been carried out, this is a reason to double-check the diagnosis with another doctor. If confirmed, disability can be issued.

Do not panic ahead of time. With proper treatment and your diligence, the child can speak in the same way as his peers.

Alalia is a neurological disease in which the child has an underdevelopment of speech or it is completely absent. This pathology is accompanied by impaired hearing or brain activity. Alalia is characterized by a congenital or acquired at an early age (up to 3 years) a violation of impressive or expressive speech. More often, pathology is diagnosed in boys and is detected mainly in preschool children.

In medicine, two forms of the disease are distinguished: sensory and motor. They are classified depending on which speech part is affected.

Sensory alalia is a pathological condition of a child in which he cannot normally perceive the speech of others, while his hearing is in perfect order. This form of the disease is provoked by lesions of that part of the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for the auditory speech analyzer. Quite often there is a delay in the development of the brain and oligophrenia may occur.
Often, children with a sensory form of illness can form primitive words. However, they are not able to use diminutive names. In most cases, patients pronounce words in which letters or syllables are rearranged, which makes it difficult to understand speech.

Motor alalia is a violation of the child's speech, which occurs as a result of dysfunction of the area of \u200b\u200bthe brain where the nerve endings of the speech-motor analyzer are closed. In this case, the patient hears and understands the speech of others well, but he himself is not able to master conversational skills. Due to impaired articulation, the child is not able to pronounce letters and syllables and replaces them with simpler (primitive) sounds.

Reasons for the development of alalia

The main reason for the development of alalia is a brain injury that a child can receive during birth. Predisposing factors are asphyxia, the birth of a premature baby, prolonged or rapid labor, as well as the use of obstetric instruments to extract the fetus from the birth canal.

Sometimes brain damage occurs during perinatal development. Most often, the pathology is provoked by the threat of miscarriage, abdominal trauma with damage to the fetus, the presence of somatic diseases in a pregnant woman - hypertension or hypotension, pulmonary, cardiac or respiratory failure. Significantly increases the risk of developing pathology intrauterine infection of the fetus.

Less commonly, alalia develops in the first years of a child's life (up to 3 years). The reason for this may be the transferred neuroinfectious disease and other adverse factors. As a rule, it is a traumatic brain injury, encephalitis, hypertension and before. The cause of alalia can also be the transferred acute respiratory viral infections, or pneumonia with complications, the transferred anesthesia. The situation can also be aggravated by an unfavorable social situation - lack of communication, lack of proper education, etc. In some cases, a violation of metabolic processes and can provoke pathology.

Alalia symptoms

The clinical picture of the disease may differ depending on the form and severity of the disease. Most often, the symptoms of the disease are the complete absence of speech or impaired speech function.

The main signs of motor alalia are:

The child's vocabulary is significantly below the norm for a particular age group. As a rule, these are everyday terms that are regularly used in everyday life. Patients have difficulty remembering new words. Due to the small vocabulary, the child is not able to compose a long full-fledged sentence, cannot describe the event and convey the meaning of what is happening.

The main symptoms of sensory alalia:

Diagnosis of alalia

Diagnosis of the disease is performed by a speech therapist and a neurologist; in some cases, an additional consultation of a psychologist and an ENT specialist is required. The first specialist assesses the degree of damage to the speech apparatus and analyzes its functioning. The doctor clarifies the nature of childbirth, analyzes the timing of speech and psychomotor development.

The neurologist determines what are the violations in the intellectual development of the child and establishes the patient's neurotic mood. To assess the degree of brain damage, an EEG, an MRI of the head, and an X-ray of the skull are performed. An otolaryngologist examines auditory functions using audiometry and otoscopy.

It is important to differentiate alalia from hearing loss, oligophrenia and other pathologies that have similar symptoms.

Alalia treatment

The treatment of alalia is complex and includes several areas. First of all, work is carried out with a speech therapist, whose main goal is to correct the child's speech skills. For this purpose, individual programs are created, designed for a particular child. Treatment is carried out in special centers, sanatoriums or in a neuropsychological clinic.

Drug therapy includes taking vitamin preparations, which must necessarily contain vitamins B5 and B12. Quite often, drugs that improve the functioning of the brain are used.

Additionally, physiotherapy procedures are carried out: magnetotherapy, laser therapy, hydrotherapy, acupuncture, etc. Specialists in the complex work to improve memory, attention and normalize behavior. With motor alalia, the child’s vocabulary is artificially replenished, speech activity is stimulated, and work is carried out on the pronunciation of sounds and the formation of one’s speech.

During treatment, the child is constantly monitored by a pediatrician and a neurologist. This allows you to assess the dynamics of recovery, timely identify complications and adjust therapy.

Prevention of alalia

Protecting the child's head from injury will help prevent the development of alalia. First of all, this applies to the period of childbirth and the newborn. Injuries at this age can lead to irreversible consequences and provoke not only alalia, but also other, more complex pathologies.