Dysalia is the name for the disorder of speech. It is manifested by inaccurate or incorrect articulation (pronunciation of words), and can be manifested as the omission of sounds (omissio), substituting it with some other sound (supstitutio), distorted pronunciation of certain sounds (distorsio) or addition of some words or groups of sounds (additio).
Age
It is believed that the development of speech lasts until 9th year, when speech is definitely automated. However, a child of three years should correctly pronounce a large number of words. There are chronological standards by which a child needs to develop proper articulation. If incorrect articulation continues after certain standards, which is diagnosed in collaboration with a specialist otolaryngologist for phoniatrics area, it is necessary to begin treatment.
Types
We differentiate between organic and functional dyslalia.
Organic dyslaly
The cause of organic dyslalia is some disorder in the anatomy of speech articulators, e.g.:
- Short tongue
- Less moveable tongue
- Dental disorders
- A large, thickened tongue (macroglossia)
- Cleft palate
- Cleft chin
- Cleft lip
- Various other malformations of tongue and jaw
Functional dyslaly
Functional dyslalia is caused by impaired function (e.g. listening), and so we call it dyslalia of unknown cause. With so-called orthogenic dyslalia, speech disorder is usually caused by hearing loss for a typical frequency for some sound.
Dyslalia can occur at slow speech development as one of the many symptoms.
The extent of damage
Depending on the cause, the speech system can be partially damaged (sometimes only one sound or a group of sounds), or to a greater degree.
In cleft palate (palatoschisis) practically the whole system votes of sounds is distorted (nasality).
More often damage is partial, when errors occur with consonants, usually fricatives and affricates and the vibrant R.
Sigmatism (sigmatismus) is the name for the faulty pronunciation
With small children it is usually about omission or substitution of those sounds, while in adults it is about distorted pronunciation. Lateral sigmatism is a more unpleasant kind of sigmatismus for the listener. It occurs during tooth development when a child, due to the loss of incisors, sets tongue on the side (laterally), finding support on the premolars. If after the emergence of incisors the same mechanism of creation of the sounds remains, lateral sigmatism results, which should be solved speech therapy.
Rhotacism (rotacismus) is the name for distorted pronunciation of R sound. This disorder is most common after sigmatismus, and is characterized by omission, replacement and distorted pronunciation. If omission and replacement of voice R persists after third year, it is necessary to seek the help of otorhinolaryngologist – phoniatrician or speech therapist.
Lambdacism (lambdacismus) is distorted pronunciation of LY sound.
Kapacismus is a disorder of pronunciation of K sound.
Gamacismus is a disorder of pronunciation of G sound.
Thetacismus is a voice disorder of pronunciation of T sound.
Deltacismus is a voice disorder of pronunciation of D sound.
Thetismus is a speech disorder in which a higher number of consonants is difficult to pronounce properly, and is a more serious disorder than previously listed. It may involve serious disturbances in the central nervous system.
Treatment
Treatment of dyslaly is carried out by removing the causes of disorders of speech, if possible (e.g., surgical correction of cleft palate, jaw, etc.). If the cause can not be removed or is unknown, treatment consists primarily of voice exercises.