Speech disorders in children

Now children have a tendency to decrease their vocabulary. This may be due to the development of gadgets, the lack of need for communication. Parents try to understand the child at a glance, so the baby has no motivation. It is important to encourage him to communicate.

When to see a doctor

You can start to worry if, after two or two and a half years, speech continues to be absent. That is why medical examinations with neurologists and psychiatrists begin at this age. If the child has a small vocabulary or no speech, he is taken under supervision and, if necessary, referred to speech therapists to accelerate speech development.

After 2.5 years of age, speech development disorders can be the result of a number of diseases unrelated to neurology. These are autism and mental retardation. In this case, in addition to delayed speech development, there are secondary symptoms: isolation from the outside world, lack of auxiliary gestures, misunderstanding of spoken speech, lack of contact with others. In this case, it is worth contacting a neurologist.

Routine checkups are the best method of early diagnosis. The neurologist monitors the child every year, monitors his development. The annual check-up at the EMC includes an examination and a psychiatric consultation. If a speech disorder is suspected, it is recommended to undergo a turning examination earlier, for example, after six months, or the child is referred to a speech therapist to correct the delay in the early stages.

Types of speech development disorders

• Alalia - complete absence of speech due to the absence of problems with hearing and articulatory apparatus. We send children over 3 years old with delayed speech development to an MRI scan to assess the areas of the brain that are involved in speech development and determine the degree of impairment.
  Alalia is a severe speech disorder in which a child does not understand the meaning of the spoken speech, but only recognizes individual sounds. Children cannot start talking on their own, so they need the help of specialists: a neuropsychologist, a speech therapist, a psychiatrist and a neurologist.
• Dysarthria is the complete absence of speech due to the insufficient development of the articulatory apparatus. It is very difficult for a child to reproduce sounds, so pronunciation is fuzzy, blurred, there is an acceleration or deceleration of the pace of speech, a violation of the respiratory rhythm during conversation. Chewing may be difficult. In this case, speech therapy, neuropsychological and neurological support is also necessary.
• Dyslalia – inability to reproduce individual sounds. There are often problems with pronunciation of "R", "L", "T". Speech therapy and classes with a neuropsychologist are very important for correction. If you have problems with pronunciation from the age of three, you already need to contact a speech therapist. Speech therapy support for children is long-term, up to school age, because dyslalia is difficult to correct.

Many parents think that speech will form itself by school, but this is not the case. Children with speech delays often have problems with academic performance at school. It is difficult for them to perceive and present information, and writing disorders may develop. Full speech development occurs before the age of six, after that age it is much more difficult to help.

Diagnosis of speech development disorders in children

As a rule, neurologists refer patients to us. The psychiatrist primarily excludes more serious pathologies, such as autism spectrum disorders or delayed psychoemotional development. The doctor consults the parents first, then the child. Examination of children with speech disorders also includes neuropsychological and speech therapy diagnostics. Then the speech therapist and the neuropsychologist develop an individual correction plan.