Does your child have a speech delay?

The naked eye may not see the difference between children with mental retardation and signs of mental retardation.
In fact, their differences are fundamental. And, most importantly, this makes it possible for the first to further establish mental development and become a full-fledged unit of society with appropriate training. The latter, unfortunately, remain outside the game, excluding mental progress. However, there may be a third option, when a less exaggerated mental retardation (MD) worsens, acquiring the features of mental retardation (MR). To understand the mechanism of this transformation, it is necessary to clearly distinguish between both concepts.

Children with mental retardation

Mental retardation is a borderline state between normal and mental retardation, expressed in a slowdown in the rate of normal mental development of a given age period. Accompanied by a lag in the development of mental functions, such as thinking, memory, attention, emotions, and the volitional sphere. This is manifested in meager intellectual activity, limited knowledge and ideas, dominance of gaming interests, and rapid fatigue from intellectual work.

In other words, the child behaves infantilely. His behavior does not correspond to his real age. It seems to roll back, several steps lower, repeating the behavior of younger children.

However, under conditions of correct training, such a child is able to adapt quite well to life in society, increasing the level of his development.

Among the causes that provoke pathology, biological and social factors can be distinguished. Biological include pathologies during pregnancy, prematurity, birth injuries, genetic diseases, severe somatic diseases, injuries, infections at an early age, hearing and vision problems. Social factors include:

• pedagogical neglect;
• systematic psychological trauma;
• unacceptable conditions of upbringing;
• limited life activity of the child.

Interestingly, since 1997 the term “mental retardation” does not officially exist. With the introduction of ICD-10, this concept is included in the category of “mental developmental disorders”.

Depending on the cause, mental retardation can manifest itself in several forms.

The first form is constitutional in nature and occurs in children with an infantile body type. Such children show bright, lively emotions that prevail in behavior. Their development lags behind the age norm, corresponding to an earlier stage of development. They are completely involved in play activities, express themselves creatively, and are very active.

These are precisely those schoolchildren who find it difficult to sit in class and maintain discipline. Due to the reduced ability to control one’s behavior, thinking, and emotional-volitional sphere outside favorable conditions, this state of affairs can boil down to social maladjustment.

The 2nd form is of a somatogenic nature, that is, it occurs in connection with chronic diseases that cause loss of strength and decreased activity. This forms character traits such as lack of self-confidence, various kinds of fears, doubts, and timidity.

Overprotection in connection with illness further reinforces existing infantilism. The child is unable to concentrate and direct attention in the right direction. He is emotionally unstable, easily unbalanced, has low self-esteem and high anxiety.

The 3rd form develops as a result of pedagogical neglect. Such children are physically completely healthy and have an initially normal nervous system. In conditions of lack of information, education and emotional closeness with significant people, they have insufficient development of the necessary skills, abilities, and knowledge.

With this form of mental retardation, mosaic thinking predominates. This is a fragmentary perception, knowledge a little about everything, which is not supported by experience and experiences. So, children with form 3 mental retardation are very well oriented and smart in situations that are familiar to them or in things that arouse genuine interest. If a child develops in conditions of attention deficit, he acquires such traits as lack of control over his own emotions, impulsiveness, and irresponsibility.

Overprotection leads to egocentrism, lack of will, and parasitism. In general, a child has well-developed mental functions (memory, thinking, attention), but may not be able to read, count, or know basic geometric and mathematical concepts. However, imaginative thinking is highly developed.

The 4th form is caused by organic damage to the central nervous system during pregnancy, childbirth and during the first year of life. Immaturity and infantilism manifest themselves in all areas. Motor dysfunction is expressed in the form of increased excitability, clumsiness of movements, and sleep disturbances. Emotions are primitive, dim. The game is stereotypical and monotonous, but prevails over educational activities.

Such children are conventionally divided into two categories: with high mood (impulsiveness, disinhibition) and low mood (timidity, fears, lack of independence). The 4th form of mental retardation causes partial, that is, partial impairment of cognitive activity.

ZPR is not a total underdevelopment, but is expressed in a slowdown in the rate of mental development. It should be understood that the condition is reversible, but subject to proper specific training.

What should I do to help my child?

A competent speech therapist will definitely give advice and exercises that parents can do to help their child develop speech. As a rule, parents are recommended:

• Actively communicate with your child. You need to talk to your baby from birth. Only constant communication can arouse interest in speech in a baby. Adults should speak clearly and distinctly, sing songs, and tell stories. Every action must be accompanied by words. As a result, a constant language environment will push the child to learn conversational skills more quickly and easily.
• Pay attention to the quality of speech. It is extremely important that the speech of adults is clear and literate. The use of filler words should be avoided. You cannot distort words or lisp when communicating with your baby. The child’s perception and the clarity of his pronunciation depend on this.
• Use educational toys. You should not use gadgets and games built into them. You can take cubes, pyramids, puzzles or mosaics. You should actively participate in the gameplay, describing what is happening in words. This will help shape not only speech, but also thinking, logic and memory.
• Develop fine motor skills. Experts believe that the formation of fine motor skills directly affects the development of speech skills. You should constantly work with your child on modeling from plasticine, stringing beads, sorting out small toys, etc.
• Visualize. Bright pictures with fairy-tale characters, animals, fruits and other objects motivate kids to describe them. Parents should show the child images and tell them what is drawn on them.

If necessary, in addition to classes, a speech therapist can also prescribe medications to stimulate the brain's speech zones, procedures, speech therapy massage, or alternative correction methods (hippotherapy, swimming with dolphins). It should be remembered that there are no universal approaches, because each child is individual, and only a specialist can take into account all his features during the development of the speech apparatus.

Publication date: 06/24/2019. Last modified: 11/29/2021.

Mental retardation

This name was given to underdevelopment of mental activity. As a rule, it is provoked by several factors, among which genetic diseases come first. The other group consists of exogenous factors: trauma, intoxication, infection, fetal hypoxia.

Mental retardation is irreversible and is characterized by the following features:

• totality of the lesion - all neuropsychic functions are disrupted. Speech especially suffers - the grammatical side, the active vocabulary is very meager. Emotions are flat, monotonous, little controlled;
• Among mental processes, thinking is the first to suffer. Its deficiency leads to underdevelopment of elementary mental processes: memory, speech, perception.

UI is primarily represented by oligophrenia . This is underdevelopment of the brain associated with irreversible damage to the cerebral cortex. It is a congenital or acquired defect before the age of two.

There are three degrees of oligophrenia:

• debility;
• imbecility;
• idiocy.

They differ in the severity of the intellectual defect. If IQ with debility ranges from 50 to 70, then with idiocy this figure is 20.

Children suffering from debility are capable of simple work. They find it difficult to learn new skills, and their emotions are very primitive. Sensorimotor reactions are slowed. Phrase speech and mechanical memory are preserved. They are able to master basic reading, writing, and counting skills. Debility is the mildest degree of the disorder.

Imbecility preserves the most primitive self-service skills, the ability to remember a small amount of information, and allows one to acquire basic learning skills.

Idiocy is a gross, deep disturbance of thinking (virtually absent) and all mental processes in general. Such children are not capable of self-care and have poor spatial orientation. Almost no one recognizes them except the people caring for them. Behavior is often dictated by instinctive programs. The speech is incomprehensible. Expressions of emotions such as crying and tears are not typical.

Dementia is an acquired dementia that develops in a child after 2-3 years of age, and is accompanied by the collapse of already formed mental functions. Infections or injuries can trigger dementia. The condition is characterized by uneven damage, with some parts of the brain affected more than others.

Methods for eliminating SRR

There are different ways to eliminate speech delay in a child. This can be drug therapy, physiotherapy, special exercises, massage. The treatment method is selected based on the cause of the problem identified during the diagnostic process.

If SRD is provoked by socio-pedagogical factors, the creation of a favorable environment is required. Speech pathologists and speech therapists conduct various exercises and use practical and technical means of rehabilitation.

If FRA is associated with weakness of the facial muscles, then speech therapy massage will be useful.

It will strengthen the muscles of the mouth and ears. Novikova's probe massage is performed according to individual indications. In some cases, doctors recommend training at the hippodrome or dolphinarium.

Mental retardation and mental retardation: what is the difference

Both conditions are very similar to each other, since in both cases there is distortion, disruption of mental functions and a discrepancy between the child’s level of development and his age. That is, behavior, emotions, and intelligence are at a stage characteristic of a younger age. However, the specialist is obliged to conduct differential diagnostics in order to determine the diagnosis. This is very important, since mental retardation and mental retardation are subject to different methods of therapy, pursuing separate goals.

To quickly grasp the difference between disorders, let's present their comparison in the form of a table:

Play, the most important activity for children, with mental retardation is more emotional, but rather meager and limited, and it is difficult to imagine it figuratively. Children with delayed developmental skills typically get stuck in story-based play without reaching the role-playing stage. Children with ID become fixated on object-based play.

It should be noted that both disorders entail impairment of the intellectual, cognitive, and social spheres. But with ZPR, these violations are less threatening in nature and have the possibility of their further development under proper conditions. With mental retardation, unfortunately, there is no likelihood of progression of mental development. The formed defect, regardless of the degree, is persistent and unchanged.

Dementia, in contrast to mental retardation, entails the disintegration of personality, a total, gross disorder of activity with an almost complete shutdown of functions.

Where to contact?

Many parents think that if a child speaks poorly at 3 years old, then they need to contact a speech therapist. But it is worth understanding that doctors of this specialization teach children to repeat various sounds and speak correctly. To get rid of the problem, you need to find out its genesis.

The following doctors treat RRD:

• speech therapist;
• defectologist (deals with the speech development of children with physical and mental disabilities);
• neurologist (specializes in eliminating brain pathologies);
• ENT (deals with the treatment of diseases of the hearing organs);
• psychologist (helps develop fine motor skills, improve memory, cope with psychological trauma).

Speech therapists do not make diagnoses. Parents should contact their local pediatrician. The doctor will examine the child’s medical history and refer him for diagnostic procedures.

How does the ZPR transfer to the UO?

Defects in mental activity with a delay in mental retardation tend to transform both towards progress and towards regression. For example, there are cases where a child in an orphanage, as if in a frozen state, does not walk, does not talk, freezes at one point, being adopted by a prosperous family, literally in a week learns all the skills appropriate to his age. He is quickly gaining weight and improving his communication skills.

On the other hand, a slowdown in the rate of development can increase, exacerbating its manifestations. In addition, the term ZPR is applicable only for preschoolers and primary schoolchildren. If, after primary school age, signs of mental retardation persist, then it goes into the category of mental retardation.

The main role in the progression of symptoms of mental retardation is played by untimely or completely ignored measures to correct the condition. It is very important to begin corrective treatment for such children as early as possible. It requires special training. Regular schools cannot create the necessary conditions to accept such children. When time is lost, existing defects deepen on all fronts:

• Cognitive processes - attention, perception, memory - are further distorted, which inevitably leads to a decrease in intellectual activity;
• both written and oral speech do not progress. The child is not able to receive information from the outside in sufficient quantities, which is why he withdraws into himself. Communication ties with the world are severed. Establishing contact with peers and family members becomes almost impossible. Thus, the baby self-isolates and withdraws into himself;
• Due to the regression of cognitive abilities, it is difficult for children with advanced forms of mental retardation to master even basic skills. There is no natural age-related change in activity from play to learning;
• the emotional sphere is deteriorating. The child becomes labile and does not control his emotions.

Relationships with parents, in particular with the mother, play a special role. Feeling irritation, lack of support, and love on her part, kids turn into capricious, touchy and stubborn bullies, or fall into a stupor. The lack of emotional connection gives rise, in addition to personal degradation, to fears and anxiety.

In general, children lose touch with the world around them. In the future, it becomes difficult for them to adapt to the team, decide and get a profession, and establish interpersonal relationships. The advanced stage of mental retardation makes the child infantile, uncontrollable, distracted and helpless, and can lead to traits corresponding to mental retardation.