Speech aphasia: what is it, the reasons for a poor understanding of speech, form, species, correction. Afasia and Alalia in children: Reasons

What is aphasia, alalia and apraxia in children and adults? You will find the definition, causes and methods of correcting these pathologies in the article.

Content

There are such cases in medical practice when there is a disorder of previously formed speech activity, in which the ability to use your own speech and/or understand the converted speech is partially or completely lost. This deviation is called aphasia.

Read on our website an article on how to improve diction and speech. You will find effective tongue twisters for speech development.

What are the causes of aphasia, what are the features and symptoms? Look for answers to this and other questions in this article. Read further.

What is brain aphasia: the causes of a poor understanding of speech, why does it occur with damage to areas of the brain, in patients after a stroke?

Term Afasia - Aphasia (gr. Fazis - speech) Refers to partial or complete loss of language skills as a result of damage to the corresponding structures of the brain. In fact, we can say that this is a partial or complete loss of language, its understanding and transmission. There are also difficulties with its repeated study.

The causes of loss and poor understanding of speech can be different. Why does aphasia occur with damage to the areas of the brain? Separate parts of the brain are responsible for this or that ability in humans. Therefore, when they are damaged, a violation of the ability occurs. The most common causes of aphasia in patients are cerebral strokes, i.e. Interruption of blood supply to certain parts of the brain, for example, due to such conditions:

Rupture of the blood vessel and hemorrhage
Cluscular arteries
Destruction of nervous tissue due to trauma of the skull
Tumors
Abscesses

Immediately after the damage to the brain, and during the first few days, usually there is a loss of consciousness, followed by headaches, nausea, paresis or paralysis of half of the body, loss of speech and understanding.

Brain injury, in addition to speech disorders, may also cause violations:

Memory
Feelings
Mental processes
More complex movements (apraxia)
When analyzing external stimuli (visual, auditory and other agnosia)
Sensory disorders (touch, pain, temperature)
Spatial orientation
When reading and writing
In the operating numbers (akalculia)

Knowledge of the above disorders is important, as they can accompany speech disorders or speech loss.

Speech aphasia with damage to the brain: forms, types with symptoms

There are several forms of speech aphasia with damage to the brain.

Important:Only a specialist should diagnose and determine the type of disease. Based on this, treatment and correction of the defect is performed.

Here is the classification of such a pathology with symptoms:

Efferent motor aphasia associated with damage to the lower parts of the premotor region (Brock zone). The central speech defect in Brock's aphasia becomes kinetic articulatory apraxia. It makes it impossible to switch from one articulatory position to another.
Afferent motor -it develops with damage to the lower parts of the post -central crust adjacent to the Rolander furrow. In this case, the main violation is kinesthetic articulatory apraxia, that is, the difficulty of finding a separate articulatory posture necessary to pronounce the desired sound.
Acoustic-Gnostic- It occurs when the focus of the pathology in the area of \u200b\u200bthe back third of the upper temporal ditch (Wernica zones) occurs. The main defect that accompanies Afazia Wernik is a violation of phonemic hearing, analysis and synthesis and, as a result, a person does not understand the address.
Acoustic-mnestic-it is a consequence of the defeat of the medium temporal gyrus (extraordinary parts of the auditory cortex). With acoustic-mnestic aphasia due to increased inhibitory of auditory traces, auditory-based memory suffers; Sometimes - visual ideas about the subject.
Semantic - It develops with damage to the front -line and posterior parts of the cerebral cortex. This form of aphasia is characterized by specific amnestic difficulties - forgetting the names of objects and phenomena, a violation of understanding of complex grammatical constructions.
Dynamic- pathology that is connected with damage to the posterior brain. This leads to the inability to build an internal program of utterance and its implementation in speech, that is, a violation of the communicative function of the conversation.
Sensory (sensorimotor) - This is the loss of speech functions in whole or in part. Pathology lowers the quality of life and is the basis for assigning disability. The lack of awareness of speech is associated not only with the lesion of the cortical part of the auditory analyzer, but also with a violation of articulation.

There is also primary speech therapy aphasia. This is a form of front-and-shaped lobar degeneration-a group of associated disorders that occur in the frontal or temporal lobes of the brain. A person can still serve himself and participate in everyday activities for several years after the development of pathology. The disease develops slowly, so the breakdown of the speech function occurs gradually. In more detail, it will be described below in the tables. Read further.

Afasia classifications table

Study the table below. It contains a classification of aphasia, area of \u200b\u200bdamage, factors, central symptom, clinical picture and clinical and psychological characteristics:

Video: Video lesson of the form of aphasia. Part 1

Video: Video lesson of the form of aphasia. Part 2

Diagnostics for aphasia

Due to the fact that this disease does not have a single classification, an accurate understanding of pathogenesis, a neurologist can be difficult to diagnose the type of aphasia. Diagnosis is carried out by excluding other mechanisms of violations, determining the nature of cerebral lesion. Typically, the doctor prescribes such diagnostic measures:

MRI
Ct
Ultrasound of the vessels of the brain, etc.

To understand whether a person is sick or not, it is enough to ask him to tell about himself. Ask the child to read and tell what he read about. Questions on the understanding of logical, grammatical and spatial relationships help in diagnosis. For example, who should whom and who should, etc. These simple tests can even be used at home if there are suspicions of pathology in adults or children.

But you cannot do without examination in a medical institution. This will help confirm or refute the diagnosis.

Afasia - speech disorders in the brain: Features of therapy

With some aphas, speech disorders in the brain recede to some extent spontaneously, without speech therapy. This occurs in situations when, in addition to constant damage to certain parts of the brain - temporary damage arose caused, for example, edema, circulatory disorders or reduced excitability of nerve cells and synaptic conductivity. Features of aphasia therapy:

Constant, organic brain damage causes a violation of a certain function. In this case, therapy consists in replacing a function with a function that can participate in this functional system, for example, a sensation or auditory-visual perception.
Speech therapy therapy can only begin when acute symptoms of the disease caused by aphasia are weakening.
First, sessions should be short (up to 5 minutes).
The re -education time can be gradually increased, but - depending on the mood of the patient - you should take short but frequent breaks for relaxation.
At the next stage, the exercises can last up to 45 minutes per day with frequency 3-4 times a week Or even every day.

It is worth knowing: In softer cases, speech is returned during 1-3 months, often even spontaneously.

With heavier strokes, the help of a speech therapist is needed, retraining lasts up to 2-3 years, and speech may not reach its former perfection. It will be slow, with a simplified style, and some difficulties in understanding may remain.

Restorative training: correction in the work of understanding of speech with aphasia, video

The people around him should remember the patient’s mental state, who, due to a long inability to maintain contact with the environment, may arise in despondency and even depression. Afatics are aware of their disability, they are sensitive to environmental reactions. It is necessary a lot of tact and patience, both from a speech therapist and from the nearest environment, otherwise the correction in the work of understanding of speech will be ineffective. It is better to take a break in therapy than to dissuade the patient, hurrying.

Speech therapy and restoration training should be adapted to the nature of speech disorders and their degree. Direct methods consist in performing a disturbed function in order to use the reserves present in the damaged area, if it was not completely damaged. When these methods do not give results, indirect methods are used that consist in the inclusion of additional replacement functions. For example:

In the case of a sensory violation of the position of the organs of speech, the patient can use his vision.
It is enough to show him diagrams of the position of the organs of speech corresponding to certain sounds, and there will be a gradual recovery.

It is impossible to follow a fixed therapeutic program, since there is a wide variety of symptoms, and even within the same form of aphasia, it is necessary to adapt the program to such factors:

Type of speech disorders
Physical and mental capabilities of the patient
His age, education and interests

Therefore, it is important that a speech therapist works with the patient, which will help to achieve good results faster.

It is worth knowing: Young people teach speech much faster than older people. The best results are achieved with educated people who understand the need for re -education and are aware of their speech difficulties.

Below you will find a series of videos in which a specialist tells how to deal with sick people. It can be said with confidence that a speech therapist will help to quickly and productively restore speech abilities after a stroke, injuries and other conditions.

Video: aphasia. Restoring speech

Afasia and Alalia: violation of speech and perception in children

Afasia can also affect children affected by accidents or infectious diseases, such as:

Measles
Smallpox
Whooping cough
Flu
Diphtheria
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever
Polio
Meningitis

Influenza and whooping cough - in addition to toxic brain damage - can cause hemorrhage to the brain. Not only a violation of speech occurs, but also the perception of the world as a whole.

Since damage to cortical nerve structures in children occurs during the period of incomplete psychophysical development, the symptoms are not as diverse as in adults. Speech violations depend on such factors:

The age of the child
Stages of development of his speech
Degree of mastery of reading and writing skills

Due to the wider possibilities of compensation in the form of new functional systems, aphasia in children is restored faster than in adults. However, some traces of the defect remain both in speech and in the psyche of the child, since the baby develops in adverse conditions. It is worth knowing:

If the cortical structures are damaged before the child begins to speak, this is not aphasia, but Alalia.
To distinguish aphasia from alalia can be difficult and requires a thorough anamnesis and neurological examination, and sometimes a longer speech therapy monitoring of a child.

The difference between Afazia and Alalia, also called speech impotence, hearing loss (Audimutitas), is that Alalia arises before the development of speech. It is usually characterized:

Sufficient mental development
Good mobility of speech organs
Normal physiological hearing

But the child does not speak at all, uses gestures, screams and onomatopia or a few words from his own dictionary, understandable only to a close environment. The child also cannot repeat. Such speech powerlessness can continue up to 7 years (simple alales) and even up to 14 years old (complex alales). An older child learn more and more words, and pronunciation can become more and more correct. Alalia, like other defects and speech disorders, is more common in boys than in girls.

How is the perception of the world in a child with Afazia and Alalia:

It is sometimes difficult to make friends with such children, they can be inhibited or overexcited.
Some of them are harmful and aggressive in relation to younger and weaker children, others avoid contact with the environment.
It happens that parents are unfair to their children and do not think about difficulties. It is difficult for them to imagine that a child cannot utter a single simple word.
They constantly think that the child is stubborn and apply punishments to him. This causes the baby, normal in such a situation, a protective reaction in the form of crying, aggression or malicious actions.

Remember: In such a situation where parents cannot communicate with their children, when their crumbs do not respond to questions and statements addressed to them, parents should not apply punishments. In these cases, it is necessary to watch the child calmly.

The shortcomings in the understanding of speech are often compensated by such children with good visual susceptibility and good memory of the place. The child maintains contact with his environment through gestures and facial expressions. Sometimes he automatically repeats the word heard, not understanding its meaning. When this happens, with the child you need to contact a speech therapist who knows how to help the baby.

Read on our website another article described developing games for children of 5 years to develop speech, attention, perception of the world.

Aphasia and apraxia: mechanisms

Apraxia is a violation of targeted movements and actions while preserving the elementary movements constituting them. These two states can flow together. The mechanism is this:

With damage to the lower sections of the post -central gyrus of the dominant hemisphere, oral apraxia develops.
Usually, in combination with motor aphasia: the patient cannot find the positions of the speech apparatus necessary for the pronunciation of the corresponding sounds, sounds close to articulation are mixed, and a letter is violated.
With damage to the frontal lobe, frontal apraxia occurs: the breakdown of complex movements and programs of actions.
The patient is prone to echopraxia (repeats the movements of the expert) or to stereotypical movements, which he does not notice.

Such cases are very complex and therefore the intervention and help of a specialist are simply necessary. It is important to follow all the recommendations of a speech therapist and a neurologist. The forecasts in the treatment are usually good if the violations did not occur during inoperable tumor processes that progressive degenerative diseases. The prevention of cardiovascular diseases, head injuries, infections, various carcinogenic effects is also important.