A violation of the letter is such a deviation from the generally accepted norms of these processes, which differs by itself not passing, i.e. persistent character, requiring special assistance and affecting the personality and social adaptation child.
The pathology of writing is denoted by the following terms: agraphia (from the Greek a - a particle meaning negation, grapho - I write) - a complete inability to assimilate writing and dysgraphia (from the Greek dis - a prefix meaning disorder, grapho - I write) - specific (partial) writing violation.
Lalaeva R.I. and Benediktova L.V. define dysgraphia as a partial violation of the writing process, manifested in persistent, repetitive errors due to the lack of formation of higher mental functions involved in the writing process.
I.N. Sadovnikova defines dysgraphia as a partial writing disorder (in junior schoolchildren- difficulties in mastering written speech), the main symptom of which is the presence of persistent specific errors. The occurrence of such errors in students secondary school is not associated with a decrease in intellectual development, or with severe hearing and vision impairment, or with the irregularity of schooling.
A.N. Kornev calls dysgraphia a persistent inability to master the skills of writing according to the rules of graphics (that is, guided by the phonetic principle of writing) despite a sufficient level of intellectual and speech development and lack gross violations vision and hearing.
According to Khvattsev M.E. dysgraphia (dis - disorder; grapho - I write) are various disorders of written speech that arise on the basis of pathological conditions of oral speech, the whole organism or the psyche of the writer.
So, let's dwell on the fact that dysgraphia is a partial violation of the writing process, manifested in persistent, repetitive errors due to the lack of formation of higher mental functions involved in the writing process. It manifests itself in the instability of the optical-spatial image of the letter, in the confusion or omission of letters, in the distortion of the sound-syllabic composition of the word and the structure of sentences.
Dysgraphic errors are persistent and specific, they are not associated with the knowledge and application of spelling rules. In addition, errors can be characterized as dysgraphic only when they are observed in children of school age, since in children preschool age many mental functions that provide the process of writing are still not sufficiently formed.
The causes of dysgraphia can be organic and functional, biological and social.
Writing disorders can be caused by organic damage to the cortical areas of the brain involved in the process of reading and writing, delayed maturation of these brain systems, and disruption of their functioning. Writing disorders can be associated with long-term somatic diseases of children in the early period of their development, as well as with unfavorable conditions. external factors(incorrect speech of others, bilingualism, insufficient attention to the development of the child's speech in the family, lack of speech contacts, unfavorable family environment, pedagogical neglect, improper literacy training, overprotection).
Sadovnikova I.N. emphasizes that writing disorders may be due to a delay in the formation of certain functional systems that are important for the development of written speech, due to hazards that acted in different periods of the child's development. In addition, dyslexia and dysgraphia occur with organic speech disorders.
Some researchers note a hereditary predisposition to dyslexia (B. Khapyren, M. Rudinesko, etc.), when the qualitative immaturity of individual brain structures involved in the organization of written speech is transmitted.
Studies of recent decades prove that often one of the reasons for the considered violations of reading and writing are the difficulties in the formation of the process of lateralization (functional asymmetry in the activity of paired sensory-motor organs), as well as a delay in the child's awareness of the body schema. Dysgraphia may be the result of a violation of the perception of space and time, as well as the analysis and reproduction of spatial and temporal sequences.
AT domestic literature the concept of R.E. Levina, who interprets reading and writing disorders as a manifestation of a systemic speech disorder, as a reflection of the underdevelopment of oral speech in all its links.
1) the causes that affect the child's body as a whole, on individual mental processes that weaken them, slowing down the pace of their development. Such causes affect the parts of the brain, analyzer systems, physiologically weakening the development of a particular system. 2) the reasons that are considered in the linguistic aspect and they are directly related to the underdevelopment of one of the components of the functional basis of written speech.
The causes of writing disorders in children were analyzed in most detail by A.N. Root. In turn, in the etiology of writing disorders, the author distinguishes three groups of phenomena:
First group- these are constitutional prerequisites: individual features of the formation of functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres, the presence of writing disorders in parents, mental illness in relatives.
Second group- these are encephalopathic disorders caused by harmful effects during periods of natal development. Damage at the early stages of ontogenesis often causes abnormalities in the development of subcortical structures. Later exposure to pathological factors (birth and postnatal development) affects the higher cortical regions of the brain to a greater extent. The impact of harmful factors leads to deviations in the development of brain systems, to uneven development of individual brain functions (minimal brain dysfunctions).
Third group The reasons for the occurrence of dysgraphia are unfavorable social and environmental factors. These factors include:
· not correlated with the actual maturity of the child, the time of the beginning of literacy;
· the volume and level of literacy requirements not correlated with the child's capabilities;
methods and pace of learning that do not correspond to the individual characteristics of the child.
Thus, according to A.N. Kornev, difficulties in mastering written speech arise mainly as a result of a combination of three groups of phenomena: 1. biological insufficiency of the brain systems; 2. based on functional insufficiency; 3. environmental conditions that place increased demands on retarded or immature mental functions.
Based on the knowledge about the structural components of the functional basis of written speech, we can conclude that all symptoms of writing disorders can be due to two factors ( Annex 2):
1) unformed oral speech: phonetic-phonemic and lexical-grammatical processes.
2) unformed visual and motor processes
Let's consider each factor in more detail.
Unformed phonetic-phonemic processes
The following groups of specific errors are distinguished:
Errors at the letter and syllable level;
Errors at the level of words and sentences (phrases).
Errors at the letter and syllable level - these are substitutions, omissions, insertions, permutations of letters and syllables.
Substitutions may be associated with the lack of formation of the acoustic component of speech and articulation.
Substitutions of letters and syllables on an acoustic basis appear when the writer singles out a certain sound in the composition of the word, but for its designation he chooses a letter that does not correspond to it. Such errors are based on the difficulties of differentiating phonemes that have an acoustic-articulatory similarity. According to the acoustic-articulatory similarity, the following phonemes are usually mixed: labialized vowels; paired voiced and deaf consonants; sonorous; whistling and hissing. Affricates mix both among themselves and with any of their components.
Substitutions of letters and syllables according to the articulation feature are due to the unformed movements of the organs of articulation. As a rule, such substitutions are due to the initial unformed sounds.
The lack of formation of the action of sound analysis and synthesis manifests itself in writing in the form of the following types of specific errors: omission, rearrangement, insertion of letters and syllables. Sound analysis is an action to establish the sequence and number of sounds in a word. Pass indicates that the student does not isolate all of its sound components in the composition of the word, for example: "snks" - sleds; The omission of several letters in a word is the result of a grosser violation of sound analysis, leading to a distortion and simplification of the structure of the word: health - "dorve";
Permutations letters and syllables are the result of difficulties in analyzing the sequence of sounds in a word. In this case, the syllabic structure of words can be preserved without distortion, for example: closet - "chunal";
Inserts vowels are usually observed with a confluence of consonants (especially when one of them is explosive): “shekola”, “girl. These insertions can be explained by an overtone that inevitably appears when the word is spoken slowly during writing and resembles a reduced vowel.
Errors at the word and sentence level are associated with the lack of formation of language analysis and synthesis at the word or sentence level. The child cannot catch and isolate stable speech units and their elements. This leads to the continuous writing of adjacent words or to the separate writing of parts of the word. At the initial stage of learning, children hardly learn the articulation of the text into speech units, which is reflected in the lack of designation of sentence boundaries: capital letters and dots. Insertions, omissions and permutation of words and sentences are also noted.
Lack of formation of lexical and grammatical processes
In this group there will be errors that occur in the group of errors due to phonetic-phonemic underdevelopment. In addition, in this group there are errors that are associated with lexical and grammatical underdevelopment:
Morphemic agrammatism - children do not realize the generalized meaning of morphemes, often mistakenly use a prefix or suffix. Mistakes are clearly detected in the operation of word formation (ice - "ice"; honey - "medic", "hand" - "hands").
Agrammatisms - violation of the connection of words: coordination and control. Changing words according to the categories of number, gender, case, time forms a complex system of codes that allows you to streamline the phenomena designated, highlight features and attribute them to certain categories. The insufficient level of language generalizations sometimes does not allow schoolchildren to catch categorical differences in parts of speech. Significant difficulties are associated with the use of prepositions: they can be omitted, replaced, less often doubled. Children with dysgraphia also find it difficult to choose the appropriate form of the verb.
Certain difficulties are presented by operating with homogeneous members of the sentence.
Unformed visual and motor processes
Such errors are noted as: substitutions for the same form of the letter (p-n, p-i, s-o, i-sh, y-d, i-y, b-d, e-s, w-g, c and t .p.), replacements by spatial arrangement (Z - E, c-e), replacements by the number of elements (i-w, t - n). The immaturity of motor processes is manifested in the fact that the child cannot switch from one movement to another.
Among the listed errors, there are those that are similar in their manifestations. The most striking example of such errors is the replacement of letters. In writing, it is impossible to distinguish an error associated with the unformed phonemic processes from an error associated with the unformed articulatory processes in a child. So, the reason for writing “shanka” instead of “sledge”, “ezik” instead of “hedgehog”, “zalya” instead of “dawn” may be that the child does not distinguish these sounds by ear, but pronounces them quite correctly, and then, that the child replaces these sounds during pronunciation, but differentiates them by ear. With such errors, only after examining the sound and phonemic side of speech, it is possible to establish what type of error in writing is characteristic of the child. Substitutions due to the unformed visual and motor processes are usually easy to distinguish from other errors, but there are difficult cases where it is difficult to do so. For example, if a child writes not “porridge”, but “porridge”, the question arises whether he replaces these letters because he does not distinguish them in form, or because the child’s motor processes are not sufficiently formed (adds extra elements) , or the child replaces the letters due to the above errors (acoustic, articulatory). To differentiate such errors, you should check whether the child distinguishes letters by their shape, how the child writes off words. If no errors were found with this type of checking, then we are talking about errors that are due to the unformed acoustic and articulatory processes that are described above.
Likewise in the analysis written works It should be remembered that children often make spelling mistakes that are easily mistaken for dysgraphic ones.
Errors due to the lack of formation of analysis and synthesis and errors due to the underdevelopment of lexical and grammatical categories do not cause difficulties in distinguishing them.
Thus, we found out that dysgraphia is a specific (partial) violation of the letter. Errors in dysgraphia are persistent and can only occur in children not younger than school age. The causes of dysgraphia are varied, they can be organic and functional, biological and social. We indicated the symptoms of errors and identified errors that are similar in their manifestation.
The ability to write and the process of writing a text itself is complex, in its essence, psychological process, which psychologists put on a par with such a person's ability as speech and perception of information, in its spontaneous and systemic form, as well as to the motor abilities of a person.
Under the medical term - agraphia, doctors mean a disorder in the very process of writing, due to, but all movements of the arm and hand are preserved. Intelligence, mental abilities are also fully preserved, as well as already acquired writing skills.
The disease itself arises and develops as a result of a lesion in a patient of the left side of the cerebral cortex in right-handers or the right hemisphere in left-handers.
Types of disorder - their features
There are the following types of graphics:
- Pure or amnestic- in this case, the patient has a failure in writing when the text is written from dictation or it is written from a sound original, and when copying, the ability to write is more or less preserved. Often in its course it is combined with, acting as its vivid symptom, and in the severe form of its course, it manifests itself in the mirror spelling of words. In the latter case, a mirror subspecies of pure agraphia develops.
- Apraxic form of pathology- manifests itself as an independent disease or may be a manifestation of an ideational one. The child is simply unable to figure out how to hold the pen, and subsequent movements do not help. correct spelling letters and words, their sequence. This form of the disorder is diagnosed in any type of writing, both under oral dictation, and when writing off the text on its own.
- Aphatic form of violation is formed when the left temporal cortex in the structure of the brain is affected, which causes problems with auditory and speech memory, as well as a phonemic variety of hearing.
- Constructive form of disorder- develops with a constructive variety of pathological changes in the brain.
What parts of the brain are affected
With damage to the left temporal cortex in the brain, an aphasic form of pathology develops, which provokes a violation in the auditory-speech type of memory and damage to the phonemic type of hearing.
If disorders are diagnosed in the work of the posterior sections of the 2nd frontal gyrus, located in the patient's dominant hemisphere, then doctors diagnose a pure form of agraphia that is not associated with other pathologies and diseases.
If the patient writes in a mirror order, a mirror subspecies of the disorder develops, and this form of pathology is most often diagnosed in left-handed people, in intellectually retarded patients, in case of a failure in the process of interaction between the hemispheres of the brain.
Dysgraphia is a special case of agraphia
Symptoms of the pathology may vary - it depends on the root cause of the development of the disease. Children who are diagnosed with dysgraphia are smart, with a high level of intelligence, can keep up with other school subjects, but in their notebooks they make a lot of mistakes, confusing the spelling of such letters as P and Z, E and b.
Where to look for the reason?
Doctors call the main reason that provokes the development of agraphia.
The following factors can also provoke this disorder:
- or development or ;
- negative effect on the body and brain of toxins;
- inflammatory processes provoked.
Often the cause of the development of this pathology is a birth trauma - at a younger age, the child cannot speak, does not learn to write, at an older age, a failure in written speech in its course is combined with an inability to express one's thoughts through oral speech.
Also, a failure in the ability to write can also be a sign of the development of another pathology, the course of an underlying disease, for example, during development - this violation indicates the development of a lesion on the verge of the temporal and parietal lobes of the brain. In children or adults, the phonemic perception of information and its interpretation into graphic symbols are disturbed.
As medical statistics show, children who suffer from underdevelopment of oral speech more often suffer from agraphia, the development of language and vocabulary has not reached their age level of development.
Complete the clinical picture
The most striking manifestation of the disease is a complete and irreversible loss of the ability to write. There is a strong disturbance in the structure of the word itself, letters are omitted, the patient is unable to connect syllables, but the intellect remains intact, and previously developed writing skills are not impaired.
A child or an adult cannot write a text from dictation or simply rewrite it from the original, the mirror placement of letters, words and whole sentences manifests itself.
Establishing diagnosis
The process of diagnosing the violation itself is not difficult. At the very beginning, the doctor conducts a detailed examination of the patient, conducts, studies an example of the patient's text. In practice, it is more difficult to diagnose the root cause that leads to the development of this disease.
At the beginning, the brain is examined and the lesion is identified and, as a result, the cause of the disorder. To do this, the doctor conducts a survey of the patient and parents, if it is a child, then additional methods of neurological examination are used - or, an x-ray examination of the skull.
Doctors also use in the process of diagnosing,.
Treatment and correction
First of all, the patient is registered with a neurologist, a course of medication is prescribed, and writing skills are re-trained according to a specially designed program.
In it, first of all, the goal is to overcome inertia in the links responsible for the structure of the syllable, the choice of words and the restoration of all language functions, speech - both its written form and oral. With an adult and a child, specialists conduct both individual and collective classes, only in this way a positive effect is achieved.
The patient is under the control of a psychiatrist and a speech therapist, where he takes a course of psychiatry and speech therapy lessons. As an example, rhythmic exercises that will help restore the work of the cerebral cortex.
Physical therapy also has a positive effect on the level of mental development of the patient, since the relationship between movement, physical and motor activity and mental training of one or another affected part of the brain has been scientifically proven.
Music and singing help develop the motor skills of the vocal cords, muscles and ligaments of the larynx. game on musical instruments helps to develop finger motor skills, which also has a beneficial effect on the work of the cerebral hemispheres.
Treatment practices a course of treatment with a speech therapist - logo-rhythm and musical exercises have the most positive result in the treatment of agraphia.
The main thing when the first problems with writing appear is not to start the disease, but you need to contact a specialist. Among which are a speech therapist or a neurologist, a psychotherapist. You should never take risks and you need to contact the doctors in a timely manner. Only in this way can the pathology be eliminated in a timely manner.
DISGRAPHY - partial specific disorder writing process.
R.I Lalaeva: dysgraphia is a partial violation of the writing process, manifested in persistent, repetitive errors due to lack of formation
higher mental functions.
A.N. Kornev: dysgraphia is a persistent inability to master writing skills according to the rules of graphics, despite a sufficient level of intellectual and speech
development and absence of severe visual and hearing impairments.
Sadovnikova I.N.: dysgraphia is a partial writing disorder, the main symptom of which is the presence of persistent specific errors.
Sirotyuk A.L. : dysgraphia - a partial violation of writing skills with focal lesions, underdevelopment, dysfunction of the cerebral cortex
Allocate:
agraphia - complete inability to master the letter or its loss.
dysgraphia - writing is disturbed, but it functions as a means of communication.
S.F. Ivanenko identified the following four groups of writing disorders, taking into account the age of children, the stage of learning to read and write, the severity of violations and the specifics of their manifestations.
1. Difficulties in mastering writing. Indicators: fuzzy knowledge of all letters of the alphabet; difficulties in translating a sound into a letter and vice versa, when translating a printed graffeme into a written one; difficulties of sound-letter analysis and synthesis; reading individual syllables with clearly learned printed characters; writing under the dictation of individual letters. They are diagnosed in the first half of the first year of study.
Violation of the formation of the writing process. Indicators: mixing of written and printed letters on various grounds (optical, motor); difficulties in retaining and reproducing the semantic alphabetic series; difficulty in merging letters into syllables and merging syllables into a word; reading letter by letter; writing off written letters from printed text is already being carried out, but independent writing is in the process of formation. Typical mistakes in writing: writing words without vowels, merging several words or splitting them. It is diagnosed in the second half of the first and at the beginning of the second year of study.
3. Dysgraphia. Indicators: persistent errors of the same or different types. It is diagnosed in the second half of the second year of study.
4. Dysorphography. Indicators: inability to apply spelling rules in writing according to school curriculum for the corresponding period of study; a large number of spelling errors in written works. Diagnosed in the third year of study.
Etiology:
1) a delay in the formation of functional systems important for writing (visual, motor, auditory), which, in turn, is due to harmful effects in the prenatal, natal, postnatal period or may be hereditary.
2) violation of oral speech of organic origin.
3) difficulties in the formation of a functional asymmetry of the hemispheres in a child.
4) a delay in the child's awareness of the body schema.
5) violation of the perception of space and time.
The causes of writing disorders in children were analyzed in most detail by A.N. Root. In the etiology of writing disorders, the author distinguishes three groups of phenomena:
1. Constitutional prerequisites: individual features of the formation of functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres, the presence of writing disorders in parents, mental illness in relatives.
2. Encephalopathic disorders caused by harmful effects in the periods of pre-, pre- and postnatal development. Damage at the early stages of ontogenesis often causes abnormalities in the development of subcortical structures. Later exposure to pathological factors (birth and postnatal development) affects the higher cortical regions of the brain to a greater extent. Exposure to harmful factors leads to deviations in the development of brain systems. The uneven development of brain structures has a negative effect on the formation of functional systems of the psyche. Functional immaturity of the right hemisphere can manifest itself in the insufficiency of spatial representations, violation of the order of reproduction of auditory-speech and visual standards.
3. Unfavorable social and environmental factors. The author refers to them:
Mismatch of actual maturity with the beginning of literacy. The volume and level of literacy requirements not correlated with the child's capabilities; discrepancy between the methods and pace of teaching the individual characteristics of the child
Thus, difficulties in mastering writing arise mainly as a result of a combination of three groups of phenomena: biological insufficiency of the brain systems that arise on this basis of functional insufficiency; environmental conditions that place increased demands on retarded or immature mental functions.
Symptoms:
Lalaeva R.I. highlights the following errors in dysgraphia:
Distorted spelling of letters
Replacing handwritten letters that have a graphic similarity
Replacement of letters denoting phonetically similar sounds
Distortion of the sound-letter structure of words (permutations, omissions, additions of letters, syllables)
Distortion of the structure of the sentence (separate spelling of words, continuous spelling of words)
Agrammatisms in writing
Sadovnikova I.N. identifies 3 groups of errors:
Errors at the level of letters and syllables (errors in sound analysis - omissions, permutations, insertions; errors in phonemic perception, confusion of letters by kinesthetic similarity)
Errors at the word level (violation of the individualization of words - separate writing of parts of words, continuous writing of parts of several words, displacement of word boundaries)
Errors at the sentence level (agrammatisms, lack of designation of sentence boundaries)
Pedagogical classification of dysgraphia by R.I Lalayeva:
1) articulatory-acoustic
can occur in children who have or have had defects in sound pronunciation. Defective pronunciation of sounds, and if it is overcome, residual inferior kinesthetic sensations and ideas cause difficulties in differentiating articulatory signs of sound by the child, preventing it from being successfully correlated with the corresponding letter. Children with this type of dysgraphia are observed pronunciation during recording, which is important for starting to learn to write, is not a full-fledged support for the cognition of sounds and the sound-letter structuring of words (for example: the zouk fell down and can’t get up, if someone will help him).
2) dysgraphia based on impaired phonemic recognition (acoustic)
is associated with an insufficient level of functioning of the operations of a complex process of distinguishing and choosing phonemes. In the event of a violation of any of the operations (auditory analysis, kinesthetic analysis, phoneme selection, auditory and kinesthetic control), the entire process of phonemic recognition suffers. In oral speech, sounds are pronounced correctly, on the letter manifests itself in the form of mixtures or even complete replacements of letters in the letter (for example: a heron-heron). This type of dysgraphia also manifests itself in the incorrect designation of the softness of consonants, due to a violation of the differentiation of hard and soft consonants (for example: loves-lubit). Frequent mistakes are the replacement of vowels, even in a stressed position (for example, cloud-tocha, forest-fox).
3) dysgraphia due to violations of language analysis and synthesis
may be defective different types these two operations, that is, the division of a sentence into words and the synthesis of sentences from words, syllabic and phonemic analysis and synthesis. In writing, this dysgraphia manifests itself in a distortion of the structure of words and sentences, that is, omissions and permutations, adding letters, syllables, words, merging or breaking words, the following errors are most typical: omissions of consonants when they are combined (for example: dictation-dicant), omissions of vowels (for example: dog-dog), rearrangement of letters (for example: trail-trapo), adding letters (for example: dragged-tasakali), permutation of syllables, additions, omissions (for example: room-comta), violations of the division of a sentence into words, in this type of digraphy manifests itself in the continuous spelling of words, especially prepositions with other words (for example: it's raining-idedosh), separate spelling of the word is also characteristic, separate spelling of prefixes and the root of the word (for example: stepped on).
4) agrammatic dysgraphia
is associated with the underdevelopment of the lexical and grammatical structure of speech in children, the lack of formation of morphological and syntactic generalizations. prepositional case constructions, omissions of sentence members. At the level of sentences, agrammatisms in writing are manifested in the distortion of the morphological structure of the word, the replacement of prefixes, suffixes (for example: swept-swept, kittens-kittens), change of case endings (for example: many trees), violation of prepositional constructions, a change in the case of pronouns (for example: near him-near them), errors in the number of nouns (for example: children run), violation of agreement (for example, white house). members of the proposal, violations sequence of words in a sentence.
- partial disorder of the writing process associated with insufficient formation (or decay) of mental functions involved in the implementation and control of written speech. Dysgraphia is manifested by persistent, typical and repetitive writing errors that do not disappear on their own, without targeted training. Diagnosis of dysgraphia includes analysis of written works, examination of oral and written speech using a special technique. Corrective work to overcome dysgraphia requires the elimination of violations of sound pronunciation, the development of phonemic processes, vocabulary, grammar, coherent speech, non-speech functions.
ICD-10
R48.8 Other and unspecified disorders of recognition and understanding of symbols and signs
General information
Dysgraphia - specific shortcomings of writing caused by a violation of the HMF involved in the process of writing. According to studies, dysgraphia is detected in 53% of second grade students and 37-39% of middle school students, which indicates the stability of this form of speech impairment. The high prevalence of dysgraphia among schoolchildren is associated with the fact that about half of kindergarten graduates enter the first grade with FFN or OHP, in the presence of which the process of full literacy is impossible.
According to the severity of disorders of the writing process in speech therapy, dysgraphia and agraphia are distinguished. In dysgraphia, writing is distorted but continues to function as a means of communication. Agraphia is characterized by a primary inability to master writing skills, their complete loss. Since writing and reading are inextricably linked, writing disorders (dysgraphia, agraphia) are usually accompanied by reading disorders (dyslexia, alexia).
Causes of dysgraphia
Mastering the process of writing is closely related to the degree of formation of all aspects of oral speech: sound pronunciation, phonemic perception, lexical and grammatical side of speech, coherent speech. Therefore, the development of dysgraphia may be based on the same organic and functional causes that cause dyslalia, alalia, dysarthria, aphasia, delayed psychoverbal development.
Underdevelopment or damage to the brain in the prenatal, natal, postnatal periods can lead to the subsequent appearance of dysgraphia: pathology of pregnancy, birth trauma, asphyxia, meningitis and encephalitis, infections and severe somatic diseases that cause exhaustion nervous system child.
Socio-psychological factors contributing to the occurrence of dysgraphia include bilingualism (bilingualism) in the family, fuzzy or incorrect speech of others, lack of speech contacts, inattention to the child's speech by adults, unjustifiably early teaching of the child to read and write in the absence of his psychological readiness. The risk group for the occurrence of dysgraphia is children with a constitutional predisposition, various speech disorders, mental retardation.
In adults, dysgraphia or agraphia is most often caused by traumatic brain injuries, strokes, brain tumors, and neurosurgical interventions.
Mechanisms of dysgraphia
Writing is a complex multi-level process, in the implementation of which various analyzers participate: speech-motor, speech-auditory, visual, motor, carrying out the sequential translation of the article into a phoneme, phonemes into a grapheme, graphemes into a kineme. The key to successful mastery of writing is a sufficiently high level of development of oral speech. However, unlike oral speech, written speech can develop only under the condition of purposeful learning.
In accordance with modern concepts, the pathogenesis of dysgraphia in children is associated with the untimely formation of the process of lateralization of brain functions, including the establishment of the cerebral hemisphere, which is dominant in controlling speech functions. Normally, these processes should be completed by the beginning of schooling. In the case of a delay in lateralization and the presence of a latent left-handedness in a child, cortical control over the writing process is violated. With dysgraphia, there is an unformed HMF (perception, memory, thinking), emotional-volitional sphere, visual analysis and synthesis, optical-spatial representations, phonemic processes, syllabic analysis and synthesis, lexico-grammatical side of speech.
From the point of view of psycholinguistics, the mechanisms of dysgraphia are considered as a violation of the operations of generating a written statement: intent and internal programming, lexico-grammatical structuring, dividing a sentence into words, phonemic analysis, correlation of a phoneme with a grapheme, motor implementation of writing under visual and kinesthetic control.
Dysgraphia classification
Depending on the lack of formation or violation of a particular operation of writing, 5 forms of dysgraphia are distinguished:
- articulatory-acoustic dysgraphia associated with impaired articulation, sound pronunciation and phonemic perception;
- acoustic dysgraphia associated with impaired phonemic recognition;
- dysgraphia on the basis of unformed language analysis and synthesis;
- agrammatic dysgraphia associated with underdevelopment of the lexical and grammatical side of speech;
- optical dysgraphia associated with the lack of formation of visual-spatial representations.
Along with "pure" forms of dysgraphia, mixed forms are found in speech therapy practice.
The modern classification distinguishes:
I. Specific writing disorders:
1. Dysgraphia:
- 1.1. Dysphonological dysgraphia (parallic, phonemic).
- 1.2. Metalinguistic dysgraphia (dyspraxic or motor, dysgraphia due to impaired language operations).
- 2.1. Morphological dysorphography.
- 2.2. Syntactic dysorphographies.
II. Non-specific writing disorders associated with pedagogical neglect, ZPR, UO, etc.
Symptoms of dysgraphia
Signs that characterize dysgraphia include typical and repetitive writing errors persistent character not related to ignorance of the rules and norms of the language. Typical errors encountered when various types dysgraphia, can be manifested by mixing and replacing graphically similar handwritten letters (sh-sh, t-sh, v-d, m-l) or phonetically similar sounds in writing (b-p, d-t, g-k, w-zh ); distortion of the letter-syllabic structure of the word (omissions, permutations, addition of letters and syllables); violation of the unity and separation of the spelling of words; agrammatisms in writing (violation of inflection and agreement of words in a sentence). In addition, with dysgraphia, children write slowly, their handwriting is usually difficult to distinguish. There may be fluctuations in the height and slope of letters, slippage from the line, replacement of uppercase letters by lowercase letters and vice versa. One can speak about the presence of dysgraphia only after the child masters the technique of writing, that is, not earlier than 8–8.5 years.
In the case of articulatory-acoustic dysgraphia, specific errors in writing are associated with incorrect sound pronunciation (both pronounce and write). In this case, substitutions and omissions of letters in writing repeat the corresponding sound errors in oral speech. Articulatory-acoustic dysgraphia occurs with polymorphic dyslalia, rhinolalia, dysarthria (that is, in children with phonetic-phonemic underdevelopment of speech).
With acoustic dysgraphia, sound pronunciation is not impaired, however, phonemic perception is not sufficiently formed. Errors in writing are in the nature of substitutions of letters corresponding to phonetically similar sounds (whistling - hissing, voiced - deaf and vice versa, affricate - their components).
Dysgraphia on the basis of a violation of linguistic analysis and synthesis is characterized by a violation of the division of words into syllables, and sentences into words. With this form of dysgraphia, the student skips, repeats or rearranges letters and syllables; writes extra letters in a word or does not finish the end of words; writes words with prepositions together, and with prefixes separately. Dysgraphia on the basis of a violation of language analysis and synthesis is most common among schoolchildren.
Agrammatic dysgraphia is characterized by multiple agrammatisms in writing: incorrect change of words in cases, genders and numbers; violation of the agreement of words in a sentence; violation of prepositional constructions (incorrect sequence of words, omissions of sentence members, etc.). Agrammatic dysgraphia usually accompanies a general underdevelopment of speech due to alalia, dysarthria.
With optical dysgraphia, graphically similar letters are replaced or mixed in writing. If the recognition and reproduction of isolated letters is impaired, one speaks of literal optical dysgraphia; if the inscription of letters in a word is violated, - about verbal optical dysgraphia. To common mistakes, occurring in optical dysgraphia, include underwriting or adding elements of letters (l instead of m; x instead of w and vice versa), mirror writing of letters.
Quite often, with dysgraphia, non-speech symptoms are detected: neurological disorders, decreased performance, distractibility, hyperactivity, memory loss, etc.
Diagnosis of dysgraphia
To identify the organic causes of dysgraphia, as well as to exclude visual and hearing defects that can lead to writing disorders, consultations of a neurologist (pediatric neurologist), ophthalmologist (children's oculist), otolaryngologist (children's ENT) are necessary. An examination of the level of formation of speech function is carried out by a speech therapist.
Forecast and prevention of dysgraphia
To overcome dysgraphia, the coordinated work of a speech therapist, teacher, neurologist, child and his parents (or an adult patient) is required. Since writing disorders do not disappear on their own in the process of schooling, children with dysgraphia should receive speech therapy help at the school speech center.
Prevention of dysgraphia should begin even before the child begins to learn to read and write. AT preventive work it is necessary to include the purposeful development of HMF, which contribute to the normal mastery of the processes of writing and reading, sensory functions, spatial representations, auditory and visual differentiation, constructive praxis, and graphomotor skills. Timely correction of oral speech disorders, overcoming phonetic, phonetic-phonemic and general underdevelopment of speech is important.
A difficult problem is the issue of assessing the progress in the Russian language of children with dysgraphia. During the corrective work it is advisable to carry out a joint check control works in the Russian language by a teacher and a speech therapist, highlighting specific dysgraphic errors that should not be taken into account when grading.
According to our observations, the most important factor influencing this process is the massiveness of residual-organic symptoms. Therefore, children with organic infantilism turn out to be less prosperous in such cases than children with cerebrosthenic infantilism.
Specific writing disorders
In the existing literature on writing disorders in children, there is no unity both in terms of terminology and in determining the nature of these conditions. As with dyslexia, in the West, a quantitative criterion has been adopted to determine specific spelling disability (dissorthografia): a lag in writing skill by two or more standard errors(or one and a half to two classes) from the level of assimilation of other subjects in the absence of significant impairments of intelligence, vision or hearing (ICD-10). The qualitative characteristics of errors are not given importance for classifying the disorder as specific. Errors play a significant role in assigning disortography to one of the subtypes. According to E. Boder (1973), for example, the following subtypes are distinguished: dysphonetic (inversions of order or location predominate among errors), dyseidetic (errors in the form of phonetic spelling instead of traditional, i.e. how they hear and write) and mixed dysphonetic-dyseidetic.
In the Russian speech therapy literature, the definitions of specific writing disorders have not been sufficiently developed to date. Here are some examples. “Dis-graphy is a specific violation of the writing process” [Lalaeva R.I., 1989], without any specific criteria for delimitation. "Partial disorder of writing processes... Their main symptom is the presence of persistent specific errors... not associated with either a decrease in intellectual development, or with severe hearing and vision impairments, or with the irregularity of schooling" [Sadovnikova I. N., 1995] . The latter definition seems to be more meaningful, but the diagnostic criteria are predominantly negative, excluding (the so-called "exclusion criteria"). The only positive criterion is the presence of specific errors in the letter. According to existing practice, it is the only working criterion in Russia. However, in this case, the question remains unclear: what errors can be legitimately considered specific and how do they differ from non-specific ones? The last question of a conceptual, theoretically substantiated answer is usually not given. Almost all authors confine themselves to listing specific errors and describing the alleged mechanisms of their occurrence. The range of errors listed in various works, differs quite significantly. From our point of view, it is legitimate to call specific only the disorder itself and its mechanisms, and not writing errors. Exactly the same errors are often found in healthy children on early stages learning, but then quickly disappear [Ananiev B. G., 1955]. With dysgraphia, they become persistent.