Classes with a child with alalia

With a delay in speech development in children - motor, sensory or sensorimotor alalia - speech and communication skills must be developed from the age of three to four, for which speech therapy classes are conducted with a child with alalia and a disorder of expressive or receptive speech.

Based on an individual approach to each child and taking into account the level of his speech development, the correction of alalia in preschoolers is carried out during the game, which contributes to the development of cognitive abilities, motor skills and perception, the assimilation of basic language forms and the enrichment of vocabulary, which positively affects the dynamics of the development of speech functions. [1]

Speech therapy sessions with a child with motor alalia

In a child with motor alalia -  an expressive speech disorder  - speech therapy classes are aimed at activating the speech function and are designed to teach to recognize sounds, reproduce them adequately and use them for communication. 

According to existing methods, the structure of classes includes:

• correction of pronunciation of sounds with the formulation of the correct use of the articulatory apparatus;
• formation of ideas about the sound and syllabic structure of words;
• mastering the principles of word formation and inflection, as well as the grammatical systems of language and speech;
• vocabulary replenishment;
• learning the rules for constructing phrases and simple sentences of various types.

They begin, as a rule, with the fact that the child is taught to recognize, distinguish between the voices of animals and imitate them.

Then they memorize short and simple words - the names of objects (parts of the body, toys, etc.), actions, signs (depicted or presented). Correcting gaps or rearranging syllables in words can take a lot of time, so frequent repetition of the correct pronunciation of syllables is necessary.

A special role in the formation of speech is played by the memorization and repetition of short phrases of two or three words (noun + verb), which are necessary for the daily communication of the child.

As the correctional work progresses, the tasks become more complicated: learning to change words (nouns - by cases, verbs - by time), mastering new parts of speech and coordinating them in sentences, building phrases of four to five words (using key words, using a picture, etc.).P.). [2]

Speech therapy sessions with a child with sensory alalia

In a child with sensory alalia - a disorder of impressive speech - speech therapy classes are designed to increase the understanding of speech as such, that is, to form links between words and the objects they denote (concepts, actions, etc.).

In addition to improving understanding and developing targeted attention using verbal methods, the structure of classes with this type of speech development disorder is based on visual methods (using visual aids in the form of objects, pictures, models, layouts, etc.), which make it possible to increase the effectiveness of the development of phonemic perception of the language, correct articulation when pronouncing sounds, mastering the basics of the vocabulary and grammatical structure of speech. [3]

Speech therapy sessions with a child with sensorimotor alalia

Sensorimotor alalia is a gross  violation of speech and language in a child  against the background of damage to the speech centers of the cerebral cortex, which can be expressed in its violations or complete absence.

With this type of alalia, speech therapy correction begins with teaching the child to perceive any sounds and forming a response to them, and then the skills to recognize them. And only after that, classes begin on mastering the phonetic-phonemic system of speech, comparing the visual and sound image of words (skills for identifying objects and their names), using basic lexical and grammatical structures, expanding the so-called emotional vocabulary. [4]

The structure of classes for children with sensorimotor speech disorders should include tasks for the development of fine motor skills, articulatory gymnastics, speech therapy massage, etc.

It should be noted that with sensorimotor alalia, it is rarely possible to form a vocabulary and teach children speech skills, since there are often signs of cognitive impairment of a systemic nature.

Read also:

• How to teach a child to speak?
• The development of the child's speech: how to help him?