Speech change

Speech is the main element of interpersonal communication. Violation of speech activity causes not only problems with communication, but also causes difficulties in self-realization, affecting the quality of life.

Speech defects can occur for various reasons. It should be noted that a violation of oral speech is always a reason for an immediate visit to a specialist. Only a qualified physician will be able to identify the exact etiology of a speech defect and find the best way to eliminate it.

Most often, speech impairment is formed in childhood. Note that speech defects in children are not always a sign of their insufficient mental development. Sometimes a similar diagnosis is made to babies who have normal intelligence and hearing. As for adults, their speech disorders usually manifest neurological and mental abnormalities.

Causes of speech disorders in children and adults

In young patients, speech impairment can be caused by a number of factors. Sometimes speech defects are provoked by a combination of several reasons.

So, the cause of impaired speech activity may be difficulties in distinguishing sounds by ear. In addition, structural defects of the speech organs are possible: lips, palate and tongue, as well as their lack of mobility. Sometimes the cause of impaired speech activity is a lag in mental development. The most “harmless” option is the insufficiently competent environment of the child, which influences the formation of his personality.

If we talk about the causes of speech disorders in all age categories, then experts divide them into several groups: functional factors, social factors, and those caused by organic genesis. Functional or psychogenic factors are, as a rule, a variety of emotional upheavals that can manifest themselves as a failure of speech activity. Social factors are the adverse effects of the environment. Finally, the causes of organic genesis are malformations in the development of the speech apparatus or brain damage.

Diagnosis and treatment

Patients with severe speech disorders require treatment by appropriate specialists. Which particular method of therapy will be applied will depend on the reasons that provoked the existing defect.

So, for example, children who suffer from a delay in speech development will need to consult a child psychologist. The problem of patients with defects in the structure of the speech apparatus will be solved by surgical intervention. Slight shortcomings in speech will help to correct classes with a speech therapist.

The most serious are speech disorders caused by neurological causes. In this case, treatment can be longer, more complicated and more expensive.

Types of speech disorders

As noted above, there are many variants of speech defects. Their diversity is due to the complex structure of our speech apparatus.

So, initially, speech is formed in the speech center. There are two zones in our brain that are responsible for the formation of speech: sensory (Wernicke’s center) and motor (Broca’s center). Wernicke’s center is responsible for understanding the speech of others, and Broca’s center is responsible for one’s own speech. Excitation is transmitted from the central nervous system along the nerve fibers to the muscles of the larynx, pharynx, palate, tongue, lips and cheeks. The movements of these muscles and the flow of air moving in the upper respiratory tract form speech. Consequently, violations will manifest themselves in different ways, depending on which of the stages of speech formation the failure occurred.

Stuttering

This violation is one of the most common. This deviation is also called logoneurosis. It manifests itself in the fact that a person during a conversation periodically repeats individual words or sounds, and also makes convulsive pauses.

Logoneurosis can occur in both children and adolescents and adults. It is divided into clonic and tonic. Clonic stuttering is manifested in the fact that a person repeats the same words and sounds over and over again. Tonic stuttering does not give the patient the opportunity to move on to the articulation of the next sound, the person pauses, draws out words.

Causes of logoneurosis

Experts identify many possible causes that can provoke stuttering. First of all, it is heredity, as well as birth injuries and diseases that can cause encephalopathic consequences.

In addition, logoneurosis may indicate overwork and exhaustion of the nervous system. Also, the development of stuttering can be provoked by a violation of the development of motor skills and hidden mental disorders.

Finally, logoneurosis may occur due to severe psychological trauma (for example, an experienced tragedy or fright), bilingualism in the family, and, as a side effect of takhilalia, abnormally accelerated speech.

Symptoms of logoneurosis

Stuttering is manifested immediately by a number of symptoms, which make it possible to classify this speech disorder:

On inhalation and exhalation, a person consumes an abnormally large amount of air due to a disorder of resistance in the area of articulation. The patient seems to be constantly suffering from suffocation – he uses all the inhaled air for the movement of the vocal cords, and therefore, during speech, new portions of air are constantly “enough”.
When trying to pronounce a sound, the patient’s glottis closes like a spasm, which is why it is not possible to pronounce the sound smoothly. Therefore, for those suffering from logoneurosis, jerky, harsh speech is characteristic.
Often stuttering is accompanied by so-called “accompanying movements”. They are not necessary, but are considered by the patient as auxiliary. So, a person can clench his fists, tilt his head back, step from foot to foot, snap his fingers.
The development of stuttering inevitably causes certain mental disorders. So, a person may begin to experience an uncontrollable fear of pronouncing certain letters, syllables or words. In their speech, stuttering patients try to avoid “problem” syllables and words at all costs, looking for a replacement for them. The aggravation of stuttering can provoke complete dumbness – a person literally cannot squeeze out a single word.

Phases of development of logoneurosis

Experts distinguish four phases of logoneurosis: starting from mild, when the problem manifests itself only in extremely rare attacks, and ending with severe, when stuttering turns into a serious personal tragedy, which significantly limits the ability to interpersonal interaction.

So, in the initial phase, only short episodes of stuttering are observed, periods of smooth, measured speech are reduced. A person usually stutters when pronouncing short words, for example, prepositions or conjunctions. At the same time, the patient does not experience embarrassment due to stuttering.

The second phase is characterized by the appearance of the first accompanying movements and problems in communication. The number of “enchanted” sounds gradually increases. Stuttering becomes chronic, but the severity of the attacks varies. A person stutters usually when pronouncing words from a large number of syllables and during fast speech.

The third phase is characterized by the first attempts to replace problematic words with others, as well as the appearance of thoughts about one’s “inferiority”.

Finally, in the fourth phase, stuttering becomes a real problem. A person begins to avoid communication, pays attention to the reaction of others to his speech. There is a so-called logophobia – the fear of speaking. Suspiciousness, alertness, fearfulness, neurosis appear.

Treatment logoneurosis

How successful the treatment of stuttering will be depends on the timely diagnosis. Modern medicine uses a special approach to such patients, combining several psychotherapeutic methods at once (behavioral, hypnotic, speech therapy).

Stuttering in children of the younger age group is well corrected during game psychotherapy. Toddlers are taught to speak in time with the rhythmic movements of the fingers, in a singsong voice.

Adults who began to suffer from logoneurosis due to experienced stress are recommended to use sedatives, antidepressants.

Dysatria

Dysarthria is a disease characterized by “blurred” speech, problems with the articulation of certain sounds. The cause of dysarthria is a violation of the central nervous system. They are manifested, in particular, by reduced mobility of the speech apparatus due to insufficient innervation, in other words, muscle paresis. It is dysarthria that explains the speech impairment of patients who have suffered a stroke.

Violation can manifest in an erased, pronounced and severe form. The erased form implies that the patient has no problems with the speech apparatus, but it is difficult for him to pronounce certain sounds. With severe dysarthria, speech is incomprehensible, inarticulate, there are disturbances in intonation and breathing. In severe form or anarthria, a person completely loses the ability to speak clearly.

Symptoms of dysarthria

“Porridge in the mouth” – this is how people far from medicine can characterize the speech of patients suffering from dysarthria. This disease is characterized by the development of a whole complex of speech and non-speech disorders.

Disturbance of articulatory motility in such patients is manifested by spasticity, hypotension or dystonia of the articulatory muscles. Spasticity is expressed in the constant tension of the muscles of the speech apparatus, limited articulation movements. Muscular hypotension is characterized by slackness of the tongue, a constantly half-open mouth, and a nasal voice. With muscle dystonia, attempts to speak lead to a sharp increase in muscle tone.

The specificity of dysarthria is that speech defects are very persistent, it is difficult to overcome them. In addition, with dysarthria, the articulation of almost all sounds without exception, including vowels, is disturbed. Due to insufficient innervation of the muscles of the speech apparatus, there are also violations of speech breathing. Exhalations are very short, the breath itself at the time of speech becomes intermittent. The timbre of the voice also changes, it becomes deaf, nasal.

Dyslalia

Dyslalia is a change in speech in which a person pronounces some sounds incorrectly, skips them or replaces them with others. This problem is one of the most common speech defects and often occurs in preschool children. In the event that dyslalia is diagnosed in time, it can be successfully corrected.

Dyslalia classification

Given the reason for the violation of the pronunciation of sounds, dyslalia is divided into organic (mechanical) and functional. Mechanical dyslalia is caused by defects in the anatomical structure of the articulatory apparatus. The cause of functional dyslalia is social factors or neurodynamic disturbances in the cerebral cortex.

Based on how many sounds a person pronounces incorrectly, dyslalia is divided into simple (if articulation is impaired from one to four sounds) and complex (if there is a pronunciation defect of more than four sounds). If a person finds it difficult to pronounce the sounds of one articulation group, for example, only hissing, dyslalia is called monomorphic, and if from several groups – polymorphic.

In addition, experts divide dyslalia into several subspecies, based on what kind of sounds a person cannot pronounce correctly:

Rotacism is a defect in the pronunciation of the sounds [p] and [p’].
Lambdacism is a defect in the pronunciation of [l] and [l’].
Sigmatism – difficulties in pronouncing [w], [w], [u], [h] and whistling [s], [s ‘], [s], [s ‘].
Yotacism – problems with articulation [y].
Gammaism is a defect in the pronunciation of [g] and [g’].
Cappacism – difficulties with articulation [k] and [k’].
Hitism – pronunciation problems [x] and [x’].

Often a person can suffer from a combination of two defects at once – for example, rotacism and lambdacism.

Causes of dyslalia

The cause of incorrect pronunciation in mechanical dyslalia are defects in the structure of the articulatory apparatus. This may be a shortened hyoid ligament, anomalies of the lips and tongue, malocclusion, anomalies of the dentition (for example, too sparsely spaced or small teeth). These defects can be both congenital and occur at any age as a result of diseases and injuries of the speech apparatus.

In people suffering from functional dyslalia, there is no violation of the structure of the articulatory apparatus. In other words, they have no organic reason for the violation of pronunciation. Social factors play a leading role in functional dyslalia: for example, children can imitate the incorrect speech of adults, pronounce words incorrectly due to bilingualism in the family. In addition, minimal brain dysfunction may be the cause of functional dyslalia.

Oligophasia

Oligophasia is a speech disorder that often occurs in people who have had an epileptic seizure. This disease is manifested by a significant reduction in vocabulary and simplification of the construction of sentences.

Oligophasia is divided into temporary or acute, which is provoked directly by an epileptic seizure, as well as progressive or interictal, which occurs during the development of the so-called epileptic dementia.

The cause of oligophasia can also be disorders in the frontal lobe of the brain and a number of mental disorders.

Aphasia

Aphasia is a speech disorder in which a person is unable to understand what other people are saying to him, and also cannot express his own thoughts using words and sentences. The cause of this disorder is damage to the centers located in the cerebral cortex responsible for speech.

Causes of aphasia

Aphasia is a disorder that occurs under the influence of various factors at a time when a person’s speech has already been formed. Among the causes of this disease, one of the main ones are vascular diseases of the brain, namely, hemorrhagic and ischemic strokes. In patients who have suffered a hemorrhagic stroke, total or mixed aphasia is observed, and in those who have ischemic cerebral circulation disorders, motor or sensory aphasia is observed.

Other causes of this disease can be traumatic brain injury, inflammatory processes in the brain (encephalitis, abscess), brain tumors, as well as chronic diseases of the central nervous system that are constantly progressing (Alzheimer’s disease). Sometimes the problem can be triggered by surgery on the brain.

Among the risk factors that increase the likelihood of this disease are advanced age, heredity, atherosclerotic changes in cerebral vessels, hypertension, rheumatic heart disease, and head injuries.

The severity of aphasia depends on where exactly the lesion is located and how extensive it is, the age group of the patient and compensatory capabilities.

Aphasia classification

Aphasia is divided into several categories:

Motor aphasia is a disease in which a person is unable to pronounce words, but understands someone else’s speech and can pronounce individual sounds.
Sensory aphasia – a person is able to speak but does not understand other people.
Semantic aphasia – speech itself is not impaired, hearing is also, but the person does not understand semantic structures.
Amnestic aphasia – a person forgets the name of an object, but can describe its purpose and functions.
Total aphasia – the patient can neither speak, nor read, nor write, nor understand the speech of other people.

Symptoms of aphasia

With aphasia in any form, speech is generally impaired. The reason for this is the fact that when any aspect of the speech process suffers, the whole complex functional system falls apart.

So, in those suffering from motor aphasia, permutations of syllables are noted, speech acquires a “telegraphic” style, becomes jerky, accompanied by long pauses, and its rhythmic pattern is disturbed. With sensory aphasia, the patient is prone to the so-called “compensatory verbosity”, he repeats the same words and phrases.

With semantic aphasia, the patient does not understand well the information perceived by ear, ceases to keep it in memory. A person loses the ability to remember data, cannot catch the meaning of long phrases spoken at a fast pace, is lost during a conversation with several interlocutors.

Amnestic aphasia is characterized by impaired understanding of complex speech patterns, patients have poor understanding of the text being read and suffer from anomie – they forget the names of even the simplest objects.

Schizophasia

Schizophasia is a deviation that is manifested by confused speech, completely devoid of meaning. At the same time, a person speaks in accordance with grammatical rules, observes an intonation pattern, correctly builds sentences, but his speech is completely absurd.

Causes of schizophasia

To date, experts identify several reasons that can provoke the development of schizophasia:

Heredity. Scientists have found that the risk of the disease increases several times if there are people among relatives who have already been diagnosed with this disease. Moreover, the closer the family relationship, the higher the likelihood that the disease will manifest itself.
chronic encephalitis. This disease can manifest itself, including problems with the formulation of one’s own thoughts.
social factors. Stressful situations, emotional and intellectual overload are also considered as one of the causes of this disease.
Schizophrenia. This mental disorder is usually accompanied by schizophasia, which is one of its symptoms.
Alcohol abuse, taking psychotropic drugs.
Serious traumatic brain injury.

According to most experts, schizophasia often occurs not because of one specific factor, but in connection with a whole causal-hereditary complex.

Symptoms of schizophasia

A person suffering from schizophasia demonstrates semantic speech disorders, which can manifest themselves in the following:

Emphasized monologue of speech. Such a patient usually does not need interlocutors; he conducts a lengthy dialogue with himself.
Very clear, exaggerated intonation pattern.
Well structured sentences.
A large number of neologisms in speech.
Glassolalia is a combination of fragmentary, incompatible phrases in one sentence.

At the same time, despite the fact that a person cannot formulate his own thoughts in such a way that others understand them, he is able to realize what he is being told. Such patients are emphatically calm, friendly, and can perform simple work.

Paraphasia

Paraphasia is a change in speech in which a person confuses individual letters, syllables or whole words, replacing them with incorrect ones. Such patients can replace the correct words in sentences with those that are absolutely not suitable for this situation. In addition, in such patients, speech is significantly accelerated, as a result of which understanding the conversation is difficult.

Causes of paraphasia

Paraphasia can occur in people of different age groups. There are several reasons for this disorder:

Damage to the cerebral cortex.
Cerebral circulation disorder.
Infectious diseases affecting the brain.
Tumors and cysts of the brain.
Birth trauma.
intrauterine infection.
Fetal hypoxia.

Types of paraphasia

In total, experts distinguish three types of this speech change.

Verbal paraphasia is a phenomenon that manifests itself in the fact that a person replaces one word in speech with another that is in the same associative field with him. Instead of the word “leg” a person can say “hand”, instead of “elbow” – “knee”. With verbal paraphasia, a person can show both increased speech activity and get lost, losing the opportunity to communicate with several interlocutors. Often such patients confuse pronouns, use nouns of the wrong kind, violate the conjugation of verbs.

Literal paraphasia is the replacement of a letter or sound in a word. This phenomenon can manifest itself both in oral speech and in writing. Most often, a person replaces sounds with phonetically close ones: “b” to “p”, “z” to “s”. It is difficult for such patients to build sentences, they often repeat the same words, speak in fragments.

Mirror paraphasia is a phenomenon in which a person correctly pronounces the beginning and end of a word, and says “mirror” or “doubles” the middle – for example, instead of “boa constrictor”, he says “uadv”, “udav”, etc.

Paraphasia correction

Paraphasia is corrected by physical therapy, drug therapy and psychotherapy. Classes with a speech therapist are also shown.

Note that only comprehensive measures help to get the result.

Expressive speech disorder

Expressive speech disorder is another speech defect that manifests itself in the insufficient use of expressive means. At the same time, patients are able to coherently express their thoughts and understand well the meaning of someone else’s speech.

People with this speech disorder are characterized by low speech activity, often use cases incorrectly, and their vocabulary is very poor. They find it difficult to choose the right vocabulary, and therefore use template words and blank phrases.

As a rule, this disorder is diagnosed at preschool age. It can be corrected with the help of a psychotherapist and a speech therapist. Sometimes medication is also prescribed.