Mental retardation (MDD)
Intellectual sphere
Intellectual impairments in children with mental retardation are mild, but affect all intellectual processes: perception, attention, memory, thinking, speech.
The perception of a child with mental retardation is fragmented, slow, and inaccurate. Some analyzers work fully, but the child experiences difficulties in forming holistic images of the world around him. Visual perception is better developed, auditory perception is worse, so the explanation of educational material to children with mental retardation should be combined with visual support.
Attention in children with mental retardation is unstable, short-term, and superficial. Any extraneous stimuli distracts the child and switches his attention. Situations related to concentration, focusing on something, cause difficulties. In conditions of overwork and increased tension, signs of hyperactivity disorder and attention deficit disorder are revealed.
Memory in children with mental retardation is characterized by patchy memorization of material, poor selectivity, a predominance of visual-figurative memory over verbal, and low mental activity when reproducing information.
Children with mental retardation have better visual and effective thinking; Figurative thinking is more impaired due to inaccuracy of perception. Abstract logical thinking is impossible without the help of an adult. Children with mental retardation have difficulty with analysis and synthesis, comparison, and generalization; cannot organize events, build inferences, or formulate conclusions.
Speech status
The specificity of speech in children with mental retardation is characterized by distortion of the articulation of many sounds, impaired auditory differentiation, a sharp limitation of vocabulary, difficulty in voluntary control of the grammatical form of speech, difficulties in constructing a coherent statement, and speech inactivity. Most often, mental retardation is combined with delayed speech development, polymorphic dyslalia, and written language disorders (dysgraphia and dyslexia).
Emotional sphere
The personal sphere in children with mental retardation is characterized by emotional lability, easy mood swings, suggestibility, lack of initiative, lack of will, and immaturity of the personality as a whole. Affective reactions, aggressiveness, conflict, and increased anxiety may be observed. Children with mental retardation are often withdrawn, prefer to play alone, and do not seek contact with peers. The play activities of children with mental retardation are characterized by monotony and stereotyping, lack of a detailed plot, lack of imagination, and non-compliance with game rules. Features of motor skills include motor clumsiness, lack of coordination, and often hyperkinesis and tics.
A feature of mental retardation is that compensation and reversibility of disorders are possible only under conditions of special training and education.
Speech disorders in children with disabilities and mental retardation
Maria Gavrikova
Speech disorders in children with disabilities and mental retardation
Speech disorders in children with disabilities and mental retardation
To indicate the immaturity of speech as a system in mentally retarded children, the following formulations of a speech therapy report are recommended (for preschoolers 5-7 years old).
1. Severe systemic underdevelopment of speech
Speech therapy characteristics: polymorphic disorder of sound pronunciation, absence of both complex and simple forms of phonemic analysis, limited vocabulary (up to 10-15 words). Phrasal speech is represented by one-word and two-word sentences consisting of amorphous root words. There are no forms of inflection and word formation. Coherent speech is not formed. Severe impairment of speech understanding.
2. Moderate systemic underdevelopment of speech
Speech therapy characteristics: polymorphic disorder of sound pronunciation, gross underdevelopment of phonemic perception and phonemic analysis and synthesis (both complex and simple forms); limited vocabulary; pronounced agrammatisms, manifested in the incorrect use of noun endings in prepositional and non-prepositional syntactic constructions, in violation of the agreement of adjective and noun, verb and noun; unformed word-formation processes (nouns, adjectives and verbs); absence or gross underdevelopment of coherent speech (1-2 sentences instead of retelling).
3. Mild systemic speech underdevelopment
Speech therapy characteristics: polymorphic disorder of sound pronunciation, underdevelopment of phonemic perception and phonemic analysis and synthesis; agrammatisms manifested in complex forms of inflection (in prepositional-case constructions when agreeing an adjective and a neuter noun in the nominative case, as well as in oblique cases); violation of word formation, insufficient formation of coherent speech, in retellings there are omissions and distortions of semantic links, disruption of the transmission of the sequence of events.
Speech disorders in children with mental retardation
Speech disorders in mental retardation caused by persistent impairment of cognitive activity are systemic in nature and affect many aspects of the speech system.
Systemic speech underdevelopment (USSD ) is a variety of complex speech disorders in which the formation of all components of the speech system related to its sound and semantic aspects in children with disabilities is impaired.
Speech underdevelopment in children is expressed to varying degrees: from complete absence of speech to minor developmental deviations.
There are 3 levels of speech development:
Speech underdevelopment of a systemic nature, I level of speech development:
polymorphic disorder of sound pronunciation (two or several groups of sounds are violated at the same time, for example, hissing and back-lingual or whistling, sonorant and voiced sounds (up to 20 sounds can be violated). All types of violations are noted: distortion, absence, replacement, mixing of sounds;
gross underdevelopment of phonemic perception. Only non-speech sounds can be distinguished. Sound analysis and synthesis have not been formed;
limited vocabulary (up to 50 words). Children are able to reproduce one- and two-syllable words. Eliminations are noted;
word formation has not been formed. In speech they use lightweight words, onomatopoeia, and use verbal means of communication. A phrase appears at the top border. There are no prepositions in speech;
lack of coherent speech;
severe impairment of speech understanding.
Speech underdevelopment of a systemic nature, level II of speech development:
polymorphic or monomorphic pronunciation disorder (from 2 to 15 sounds are impaired);
underdevelopment of phonemic perception, distant sounds are distinguished by acoustic-articulatory characteristics, sound analysis and synthesis have not been formed;
limited vocabulary, all types of violation of the syllabic structure of words in three-syllable words, elision in four-syllable words;
All parts of speech are used in speech, the number of diffuse words and onomatopoeia is reduced. They use full and amorphous words in speech. When constructing a phrase, the main and minor members of the sentence are skipped;
word formation is replaced by inflection;
coherent speech is not sufficiently formed.
Systemic speech underdevelopment, III level of speech development:
polymorphic or monomorphic pronunciation disorder;
underdevelopment of phonemic perception, able to isolate a sound from the composition of a word, there are difficulties in determining the number and sequence of sounds in words;
vocabulary is limited;
in spontaneous speech, agrammatisms are noted, errors in the use of complex prepositions, violations of the agreement of adjective and noun in oblique plural cases, violations of complex forms of word formation are identified;
in the retellings, omissions of semantic links are noted, some semantic relationships are not reflected.
Educational needs of a child with mental retardation - an individually differentiated approach to the formation of educational skills; — purposeful formation of social competence, development of forms and means of communication; — formation of a functional basis for the development of thinking and speech; — development of cognitive functions; — development of all components of speech, language competence; verbal regulation of actions; — improvement of psychomotor functions; - gentle, health-saving, comfortable mode of training and workload.
TNR with UO and ZPR
Severe speech disorders (SSD) are persistent specific deviations in the formation of components of the speech system (lexical and grammatical structure of speech, phonemic processes, sound pronunciation, prosodic organization of the sound flow, observed in children with intact hearing and normal intelligence.
The main criterion for classifying a speech disorder as severe is the child’s inability to master the program of a mass educational institution (preschool and school) without special speech therapy assistance.
Severe speech disorders include alalia (motor and sensory, severe dysarthria, rhinolalia and stuttering, childhood aphasia, etc.
Alalia is the absence or underdevelopment of speech due to organic damage to the brain (motor, sensory).
Mechanical dyslalia is an abnormal reproduction of sounds that has an organic basis.
Dysarthria is a violation of sound pronunciation due to a violation of the innervation of the speech apparatus due to damage to the central nervous system.
Rhinolalia – nasal sound (cleft palate).
Aphasia is partial or total loss of speech due to damage to the central nervous system.
