Dyslexia and dysgraphia. Types of disorders and prevention

Primary school students often suffer from a speech therapy disorder – dysgraphia. It is characterized by certain types of writing disorders: children write as they speak, miss letters, change endings. This is actually a very serious problem. If you do not pay attention to solving it, the child may develop an inferiority complex. Peers at school will make fun of him, which will lead to a loss of confidence in his abilities. Therefore, dysgraphia in younger schoolchildren (correction, exercises and prevention will be presented below) should become an important topic for discussion among parents.

Reasons for appearance

Scientists have not yet identified the exact reasons why this disease occurs. This issue has not yet been fully studied, but most experts agree that the basis for the development of the disease is heredity. Causes of dysgraphia in younger schoolchildren:

1. Heredity. As already noted, this is the main reason for the appearance of the disease. Children accept from their parents immaturity of the brain in certain parts. Because of this, there is a delay in the development of certain functions.
2. Functional sources. This refers to various bodily diseases. For this reason, a violation of psycho-speech development occurs, and the child also loses the ability to read and write. Correction of dysgraphia and dyslexia in younger schoolchildren should be aimed primarily at eliminating the causes of the disease.
3. Underdevelopment of the brain. Any injury or damage can cause dysgraphia. Moreover, brain damage could occur as a result of pathologies during pregnancy, asphyxia, or exposure to infection.
4. Socio-psychological influence. Of course, we cannot forget about this factor. This disease can develop in children due to incorrect speech of people around them, lack of communication, as well as inattention to the child’s writing and reading on the part of parents.

Causes

The causes of dysgraphia can lie in various planes.
First of all, these are disturbances in the functioning of certain areas of the cerebral cortex. The peculiarities of their functioning can be associated both with heredity and with injuries, infections, unfavorable pregnancy, poisoning, etc. Another reason is the unfavorable learning environment. Multilingual parents, a change of country of residence, and simple neglect in upbringing can lead to the child incorrectly mastering the linguistic features of writing.

Less common is a lack of speech contacts: the child is left to watch TV and a computer, they talk to him little, he practically does not communicate verbally with peers and does not read books. Or the opposite situation: the family lives far from civilization, communicates little with each other, the child works from an early age and does not learn to spell or read.

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Types of dysgraphia in primary schoolchildren

Identifying the forms of the disease will help parents correctly apply the exercises recommended to speech therapists. You need to know that there are three main types of this disease:

1. Acoustic. This form of dysgraphia appears as a result of a disorder in the development of speech hearing. That is, the child is not able to perceive sounds correctly. Because of this, writing suffers; children unknowingly change letters in words because that’s how they hear. Similar sounds are mixed and often confused, for example b-p, z-zh, s-sh and others. Acoustic dysgraphia affects the softness of consonants in writing (loves - lubits). Also, the child often misses letters. Correction of acoustic dysgraphia in younger schoolchildren is carried out with the help of exercises aimed at improving the auditory space.
2. Motor. This problem manifests itself in the form of incorrect hand movements while writing. At the same time, the child can perform other actions. Violation of the combination of visual and sound images is usually the cause of the motor form of the disease. Correction of dysgraphia in younger schoolchildren of this type is aimed at completely getting rid of this ailment. As a result, the child will be able to write correctly and compare images.
3. Optic. Dysgraphia of this type manifests itself in visual impairment. Children cannot write letters correctly, which results in mirror writing, substitution, or mixing of different elements. In most cases, similar letters (t-p) are rearranged. A manifestation of this disease is mirror writing from left to right in left-handed people with certain brain disorders. Optical dysgraphia in primary schoolchildren (correction, exercises are covered in the article) is an important problem in the modern world. Visual impairment is not uncommon. Therefore, it is necessary to pay special attention to this issue. Types of dysgraphia in younger schoolchildren make it possible to specify treatment in a specific situation.

Treatment, correction

Getting rid of dysgraphia

Since the state of the cerebral cortex (in particular, its motor areas) plays a significant role in the development of dysgraphia, medication and physical therapy can be used in the treatment of dysgraphia. Treatment includes medications to improve nutrition of brain cells, as well as exercises aimed at increasing blood circulation and developing general motor functions.

As a specific method of influence, an individual set of procedures is being developed, which includes filling in the missing “links” in the process of developing speech skills. The child reads aloud, writes dictations, practices elements of penmanship, etc.

Exercises to correct dysgraphia

The speech therapist draws up a dysgraphia correction program taking into account the child’s current mental state.
Along with the correctness of written speech, all the skills responsible for the success of mastering new information, in particular, the school curriculum, improve. The main set of exercises includes:

• psycho-gymnastics (learning rhymes accompanied by active movements and gestures),
• learning spelling rules,
• performing exercises to improve memorization (increasing the volume of active memory and mastering memory resources),
• performing exercises for the development of fine and gross motor skills (outdoor games, penmanship, drawing, manipulation of small objects), etc.

In addition, the method of recognizing letters and sounds is actively used (if the violations are not caused by dysfunction of a particular system), performing tasks to find errors, general exercises to increase writing speed and improve handwriting.

How can dysgraphia be detected?

If parents suspect the possibility of developing this disease, it is necessary to undergo examination by a neurologist or ophthalmologist. The level of speech growth is checked by a speech therapist. The main thing is to correctly determine whether a child has dysgraphia or whether it is simply a banal ignorance of spelling norms.

Screening children for dysgraphia includes:

• Oral speech test. Particular attention should be paid to this aspect, especially the pronunciation of sounds, vocabulary, and the correct construction of sentences.
• Assessment of written language. After the first stage, you need to check the letter. To do this, the child is asked to complete certain tasks. Most often this involves rewriting text, conducting dictation, and reading letters and syllables. Based on the results of these exercises, the degree of development of written speech is determined.
• Examination of a child's hearing and vision. As well as monitoring the state of manual and speech motor skills.

Prevention of dysgraphia in younger schoolchildren is very important. Tasks for identifying this disease can be different. The most commonly used method is to determine phonemic abilities. Such exercises allow the child to demonstrate his skills:

• distinguish a specific sound in words;
• highlight pictures whose names begin with the same sound;
• repeat several syllables in a row after the teacher;
• hear incorrect pronunciation and point out mistakes.

If the child is very young and does not yet go to school, he may also develop dysgraphia. You can check this by looking at the baby’s drawings. Children who love to draw and do it often are practically not susceptible to this disease. If a child does not like to do this, and all his pictures consist of broken or trembling lines, there is a high probability of developing dysgraphia.

What is dysgraphia?

The first thing you need to know about dysgraphia is that it is not a mental illness or a “deviation.”
If a child is diagnosed with dysgraphia, this does not mean that he is stupider or worse than other children. However, completely ignoring this feature can certainly lead to difficulties in development. Dysgraphia is diagnosed mainly in secondary school students. In preschool children, it is not possible to reliably establish a diagnosis due to their age, and in adults, dysgraphia can only arise as a result of damage to certain areas of the brain as a result of a previous illness or in combination with another mental illness.

The very concept of dysgraphia implies a partial impairment of the writing process. A child with this disorder is able to write individual elements, but experiences certain difficulties, such as:

• inability to coordinate words according to cases (only in writing);
• inability to write syllables in words together (or separately);
• lack of endings in words;
• replacing syllables in a word, etc.

Since dysgraphia is a peculiarity of the nervous system, and not a pathology, there is no cure for it.
However, timely identified dysgraphia can be successfully corrected to such an extent that after special classes the child can speak written language to the same extent as any other peer. Of course, the success of correction depends on the severity of the disorder at the start of treatment. Much more serious than the problem itself are its psychological consequences associated with condemnation and ridicule from peers, teachers and even (unfortunately, this is not uncommon) parents. Those around them, who do not understand the child’s inability to write normally, mistake dysgraphia for laziness, lack of effort, or stupidity. This is usually followed by punishment, bad grades and the reputation of a “stupid”, “incapable”, “lazy” child.

Dyslexia - what is this disease?

Ways to correct the disease

Dysgraphia in younger schoolchildren (correction, exercises and treatment will help cope with the problem) is urgent. As soon as the problem is identified, classes must begin immediately. If the disease develops, the child should be treated by a speech therapist and psychologist.

The program for correcting dysgraphia in younger schoolchildren is determined depending on the form of the disease. Parents should take this problem seriously and follow the recommendations of specialists. An excellent option would be to transfer the child to a speech therapy school, but not every city has one. Most often, parents need to work with their children themselves.

Correction of dysgraphia in younger schoolchildren is carried out in the following ways:

• conducting classes to improve memory;
• increasing vocabulary;
• remembering spelling norms;
• written assignments of various nature;
• rehabilitation in the form of massage, taking sedatives if necessary.

Diagnosis of dysgraphia in children

Diagnosis of dysgraphia involves examination by a neurologist, ophthalmologist, otolaryngologist and speech therapist. As mentioned earlier, dysgraphia and dyslexia have similar characteristics, so the help of qualified specialists will help identify both disorders and eliminate them.

First of all, it is necessary to accurately determine whether the illiterate speech of the subject is a consequence of pathology, and not a banal ignorance of spelling rules.

The examination will take place in several stages:

• First, written works will be examined and analyzed.
• Next, you need to listen to oral speech and determine the presence of deviations. During the study, gesticulation and manner of expression are observed, and the leading hand is also determined.
• During the entire examination, specialists examine vocabulary, pronunciation of various sounds, perception of sounds and the syllable structure that the subject makes during a conversation.
• After speech research is completed, writing research begins. The subject first rewrites the printed, handwritten text, then performs a dictation, composes descriptions based on images, reads syllables, words and texts.

When all procedures are completed, the speech therapist analyzes the results and makes a conclusion. Dyslexia and dysgraphia in children, as a rule, are pronounced and their identification is often not particularly difficult for a specialist.

Many may think that the above procedures can be carried out at home, without the help of a specialist, but this is absolutely false. In order to perform the most accurate examination, you must have experience and the necessary knowledge. Otherwise, you can make a number of mistakes, which will lead to an incorrect conclusion and an incorrect understanding of how to treat the pathology.

Stages of therapy

Elimination of dysgraphia in primary schoolchildren is carried out in four steps:

1. Diagnostics. Here you should often conduct various dictations to check the existing level of grammar. The results obtained need to be analyzed and the first conclusions drawn.
2. Preparation. Here they pay attention to the development of memory, thinking, and fine motor skills. It is very important to identify an understanding of spatial relationships.
3. Correction. From this stage, the immediate treatment of existing deviations begins. All work is aimed at three aspects: grammatical, lexical and phonetic. The goal is to correct violations and normalize the process of writing and reading.
4. Grade. The final step is where all the results are checked and final recommendations are given to parents.

Effective methods for correcting dysgraphia

Here we will discuss in more detail the most effective ways to correct the disease:

1. Word model. This exercise looks like this: the child is given a picture on which an object and a diagram of a word are drawn. The student's task is to name the object and then pronounce all the sounds of the word in order. Then match each sound with a letter and write the entire word.
2. Ebbiehaus method. The student receives a sheet of words with missing letters. He needs to insert the missing letters and rewrite the entire word.
3. Analysis of sounds and letters. The child is given a picture depicting a certain object. He needs to name this thing and write the word. Then put emphasis, divide into syllables and say them out loud. Each sound must be separated and emphasized with the appropriate color. Then you need to compare their number with the number of letters.
4. Correction of errors. Here everyone gets a few words with intentional mistakes. The student’s task is to correct this and rewrite the words in the correct form.

The most common speech therapy disease is dysgraphia in primary schoolchildren. Correction and exercises that contribute to its treatment are presented below.

Types of dysgraphia and their symptoms

There is no single classification of written speech disorder, but usually the following forms of impairment are recorded in a speech therapy report:

• Acoustic – difficulties in recognizing phonemes that are similar in pronunciation (sound). Usually the cause is a disorder of phonemic hearing. As a result, when writing a word, the child replaces one letter with another. For example, “bark”, not “nora”, “bora”, not “time”.
• Articulatory-acoustic – difficulties with the perception and pronunciation of individual phonemes. Usually diagnosed simultaneously with dyslalia, which was not corrected in a timely manner. For example, when a schoolchild pronounces “badger” and not “badger,” he will spell this word incorrectly.

Sometimes schoolchildren with dyslalia write a word correctly, visually remembering its spelling.

• Lack of analysis and synthesis of what is heard or read - it is difficult for a student to isolate and recognize individual words in the speech stream, as well as divide them into syllables and phonemes. Therefore, it is difficult for a child to determine the order of letters in a word. With this disorder, the student changes the order of letters - “petushok” instead of “petushok”, inserts extra letters - “lamapa” instead of “lamp”, or skips the necessary ones - “it” instead of “whale”, does not write consonants or vowels - “shkla” instead “school”, “tul” instead of “chair”, mixes words in a sentence - “cat on a chair”, not “cat on a chair”.
• Optical – a disorder of visual recognition of letters. In this case, there is a replacement of letters with similar spellings, or underwriting of letter elements.
• Agrammatic - lack of consistency between the members of a sentence. Usually, such a disorder is noticeable when talking with a schoolchild.

“Writing out loud” task

This is probably one of the most effective exercises. There is no substitute for it; the essence is to speak out loud what is written, with the obligatory emphasis on the weak parts. This should be done slowly, pronouncing each letter clearly. For example: a cow gives milk.

The exercise is aimed at improving literacy levels. Weak beats are sounds that are not given attention during fluent speech and are pronounced incorrectly. An important point is to pronounce the word to the end, highlighting the endings. Children suffering from dysgraphia can very rarely write a complete word. They often put sticks at the end that can be mistaken for letters. However, the number of these lines does not correspond to the number of letters that should be in this word.

With the help of this task, acoustic dysgraphia is corrected in younger schoolchildren. Exercises aimed at treating the disease are quite varied. But the fundamental one is “Write Out Loud.” You need to teach your child to pronounce every written word, and then the result will not be long in coming.

Exercise “Corrector”

To complete this task you will need a boring text or a complex book. The point is that the child is not interested in reading. The only requirement is large letters to distinguish what is written. First, you need to choose an easy letter (usually a vowel) that the child knows and does not make mistakes in writing, for example “a”. The student’s task will be to find mentions of this letter and cross it out.

Then you should move on to a more complex stage. You can increase the number of letters; it is advisable to choose similar spellings, for example “l” and “m”. It is very simple to understand what exactly is causing difficulties for a child. It is necessary to conduct a dictation, in the process of writing which the student will make certain mistakes. Based on these errors, weaknesses in grammar can be identified.

Correction of optical dysgraphia in younger schoolchildren is carried out using this exercise. It is very effective, since you need to strain not only your brain, but also your eyes. It must be emphasized that the text should not arouse interest in the child. He does not need to read, but to find the shape of the letter.

Article:

The variety of pathogenetic factors and different mechanisms of impairment of written speech indicates the complexity of the problem under consideration; this explains the creation by researchers of many classifications of dysgraphia.
The terminology used by the authors is very diverse, but the content of the concepts largely coincides. So, A.N. Kornev (2003) believes that the taxonomy of dysgraphia is not sufficiently developed and is represented mainly by its pedagogical variants. I.N. Sadovnikova (1993) believes that any classification is only viable when it becomes a “working tool.”

There are several classifications of childhood dysgraphia, reflecting the different state of science at the time of their development, and also indicating a different understanding by the authors of the mechanisms of this disorder (M. E. Khvattsev, 50s of the 20th century; O.A. Tokareva, 60s; R.I. Lalaeva and staff of the Department of Speech Therapy of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after A.I. Herzen, 70-80s; A.N. Kornev, 90s, T.V. Akhutina, beginning of the 21st century).

Thus, from the position of a psychophysiological approach, dysgraphia is considered as a consequence of a violation of the analytical and synthetic activity of analyzers (S.S. Lyapidevsky, 1953; O.A. Tokareva, 1971). Characterizing the causes and mechanisms of dysgraphia, scientists say that the primary underdevelopment of analyzers and inter-analyzer connections leads to insufficient analysis and synthesis of multimodal perceptual information, a violation of the recoding of sensory information from one modality to another, for example, the translation of sounds into letters. To master writing, a child must master graphic images of letters and be able to correlate them with the corresponding acoustic and speech motor (articulatory) characteristics. He must have developed the skills of sound and kinesthetic analysis, developed the processes of visual-spatial perception, the psychophysiological basis of which is both the full development of analyzers and the establishment of coordinated connections between them.

The degree of insufficiency of interanalyzer connections correlates with the degree and nature of difficulties in mastering written speech, and the predominant impairment of one or another analyzer allowed researchers to identify the corresponding types of dysgraphia: motor, acoustic and optical. These species are described in most detail in the work of O.A. Tokareva (1969).

Acoustic dysgraphia is associated with insufficient phonemic hearing, in which the differentiation of phonemes suffers and the establishment of correct sound-letter correspondences is impaired. With this type of dysgraphia in children, there is also an inferiority of the operations of sound analysis and synthesis, as a result of which in the writing of children with acoustic dysgraphia, in addition to mixtures of letters corresponding to acoustically close sounds, omissions and rearrangements of letters are observed.

Motor dysgraphia is caused by defective activity of the motor analyzer, which is accompanied by the development of pathological inertia in the formation of motor stereotypes. As a result, children have difficulty moving their hands while writing and do not develop motor formulas for letters. The insufficiency of the motor analyzer can also affect the quality of pronunciation of the recorded word, which the child relies on to clarify its sound composition. In addition, weakness of the motor analyzer can negatively affect the activity of the acoustic analyzer, which is closely associated with it in the implementation of the writing process.

Optical dysgraphia is associated with underdevelopment of the visual systems of the cerebral cortex in children. The inferiority of the optical analyzer can manifest itself in a violation of holistic perception, differentiated visual representations, and visual memory. As a result, children have difficulty remembering and recognizing letters. In writing, they mix up optically similar letters, incorrectly arrange letter elements in space, or confuse their numbers.

Modern psychological and psycholinguistic studies of the writing process indicate that it is a complex form of speech activity, including a large number of operations at various levels: semantic, linguistic, sensorimotor. In this regard, the identification of types of dysgraphia based on violations of the analytical level is currently insufficiently substantiated.

Classification of dysgraphia M.E. Khvattseva (1959) was developed from the position of psychophysiological analysis of the mechanisms of writing disorders. Characterizing this or that type of dysgraphia, the scientist considered not only the psychophysiological mechanisms of the disorder, but also the corresponding disorders of speech function and language operations of the writing process.

It should be noted that R.E. Levin (1940) and M.E. Khvattsev (1959) were one of the first researchers who associated dysgraphia primarily with insufficient language development in children.

M.E. Khvattsev identified five types of dysgraphia, two of which - dysgraphia due to oral speech disorders (tongue-tied writing) and optical dysgraphia - are also present in the modern classification.

Dysgraphia due to oral speech disorders (“graphic tongue-tied”). According to M.E. Khvattsev, it arises due to incorrect sound pronunciation. The replacement of some sounds with others, the absence of sounds in pronunciation cause corresponding replacements and omissions of letters in the letter.

Optical dysgraphia. This form of dysgraphia, according to M.E. Khvattsev, is caused by a violation or underdevelopment of the optical speech systems in the brain, while the formation of the visual image of a letter or word is disrupted. With literal dysgraphia, the child’s visual image of the letter is disrupted, distortions and substitutions of isolated letters are observed. In verbal dysgraphia, the writing of isolated letters is intact, but it is difficult to form a visual image of a word with gross errors. With optical dysgraphia, the child does not distinguish graphically similar handwritten letters: p-n, p-i, s-p, s-o, i-sh, l-m.

Dysgraphia due to a violation of the pronunciation rhythm of M.E. Khvattsev associated it with the insufficient development of the sense of auditory-verbal rhythm, which negatively affects both oral speech and writing. With this disorder, children miss vowels and syllables and do not complete the endings of words. According to modern ideas, the identification of this type of dysgraphia is not legitimate, since the rhythmic structure is an elementary function, and in the case of dysgraphia it is customary to talk about a violation of higher mental functions. In addition, these errors can be caused either by underdevelopment of phonemic analysis and synthesis, or by distortions of the sound-syllable structure of the word.

The cause of dysgraphia due to acoustic agnosia M.E. Khvattsev saw the undifferentiation of auditory perceptions of the sound composition of words and the insufficiency of phonemic analysis. In children's writing, this manifests itself in letter substitutions corresponding to oppositional sounds and distortions in the structure of words and sentences. The existing difficulties in auditory differentiation of sounds lead to the fact that letters are not recognized by the child and the grapheme does not correlate with a specific speech sound.

Dysgraphia in motor and sensory aphasia is observed in cases of organic brain damage of the corresponding localization and is combined with oral speech disorders. It is characterized by disorders of the analysis and synthesis of the structure of words and sentences that are specific to each variant of this dysgraphia.

M.E. Khvattsev was one of the first to characterize the phenomenon of agrammatism, which can be observed not only in oral speech, but also in writing.

It should be noted that the classification of M.E. Khvattseva is currently not used in the practical activities of speech therapists, but its role in the development of the doctrine of childhood dysgraphia is very great. The theoretical concepts of dysgraphia as a speech disorder, developed by him, underlie modern speech therapy classifications of reading and writing disorders in children.

From the perspective of a clinical-psychological (medical-psychological) approach, dysgraphia is often considered not as an independent disorder, but as one of the symptoms included in a complex of other, mainly neurological or encephalopathic disorders (S.S. Mnukhin, A.N. Kornev). The causes and symptoms of dysgraphia are associated primarily with the phenomena of underdevelopment and damage to the central nervous system, manifested in neurodynamic disorders and partial deficiency of higher mental functions, in the functional insufficiency of their higher forms of regulation. In this regard, many authors point out that disorders of written speech are most often found in the syndrome of minimal brain dysfunction, with delay or other disorders of mental development.

So, A.N. Kornev (2003), considering dysgraphia from the perspective of a clinical-psychological approach and characterizing its possible variants, highlights not only the corresponding errors in children’s writing, but also the symptoms of clinical disorders that cause and accompany one or another variant of writing impairment. Clinical and neuropsychological studies allowed the scientist to identify uneven mental development in children with written speech disorders and to determine that different types of dysgraphia are accompanied in children by disorders of neuropsychic activity of varying degrees of severity and combinations. The author identifies dysphonological dysgraphia (parallel and phonemic), associated with a violation of language operations; dysgraphia, caused by a violation of language analysis and synthesis, dyspraxic dysgraphia, caused by a violation of the formation of graphomotor skills in children.

The Paralaline variant of dysgraphia (a reflection of pronunciation defects in writing) manifests itself in the form of mixtures of letters, violations of the reproduction of the sound-syllable structure of words in writing. The clinical symptoms of this type of dysgraphia in most cases are represented by the syndrome of complicated mental infantilism. Against the background of emotional lability, children exhibit manifestations of cerebrospinal gravis, increased distractibility, and weakness of voluntary concentration and volitional processes. The intellectual sphere of children is characterized by pronounced unevenness. Verbal-logical abilities are significantly lower than non-verbal ones. Among the prerequisites for intelligence in children, successive functions and fine finger motor skills suffer.

Phonemic dysgraphia is accompanied by persistent errors in the form of confusion of letters corresponding to oppositional consonants that are similar in acoustic-articulatory characteristics. Omissions of letters are also possible in children's writing. Oral speech is not impaired. This type of dysgraphia is based, according to A.N. Kornev, lies in the imperfection of phonemic representations, the weak formation of phonemic analysis, which negatively affects the selectivity of phoneme-grapheme choice. Clinical symptoms manifest themselves in low mental performance, difficulty concentrating and distributing attention. The intellectual development of children ranges from the lower limit of normal to borderline mental retardation. Verbal-logical abilities suffer to a much greater extent than non-verbal ones. Of the prerequisites for intelligence, the most imperfect are the successive functions that ensure discrimination, memorization and reproduction of temporal sequences of stimuli, actions or symbols.

Dysgraphia caused by a violation of language analysis and synthesis, A.N. Kornev classifies them as metalinguistic. Children with this type of dysgraphia suffer not from linguistic (phonological), but from metalinguistic processes: operations associated with the awareness of the basic linguistic units of speech division (sentence, word, syllable, sound) and the analysis of oral utterances into these conventional units. This type of dysgraphia, according to the author’s observations, is the most common. In children's writing there are numerous omissions and rearrangements of letters and syllables, the division of the text into sentences (dots and capital letters are missing) and sentences into words is impaired. Continuous spellings of words and separate spellings of parts of words are possible. This variant of dysgraphia is based on the immaturity of the skills of analysis and synthesis, which is one of the forms of intellectual activity. Mastering this skill depends both on the level of linguistic maturity and on the state of prerequisites for intelligence and intellectual abilities. Clinical research reveals immaturity of intellectual abilities in children with this variant of dysgraphia, sometimes reaching the level of borderline mental retardation. The inferiority of the preconditions of intelligence is manifested in a violation of voluntary concentration and switching of attention, a violation of dynamic praxis.

Dyspraxic dysgraphia manifests itself as the inability to master the graphic image of letters. Children's writing contains errors in the form of substitutions of letters that are similar in design or have the same elements, and underwriting of letter elements is observed. Children with this type of writing disorder slowly develop a stable motor formula for letters; they are characterized by uneven handwriting and a slow pace of writing. The clinical characteristics of children indicate a violation of finger praxis, difficulties in the dynamic organization of movements (inertia in switching). Children's nonverbal intellectual abilities are generally lower than their verbal ones.

Currently, within the framework of neuropsychology, attempts are also being made to present a classification of various types of writing disorders. For example, T.V. Akhutina (2001), from the perspective of a neuropsychological approach, identified variants of writing difficulties that are often encountered in children, but the mechanisms of which are rarely discussed in speech therapy (pedagogical) literature. In particular, the author identified writing difficulties of the type of regulatory dysgraphia, caused by the immaturity of voluntary regulation of actions (planning and control functions). Thus, children with these disorders have problems with maintaining voluntary attention, difficulties in orienting themselves to a task, inclusion in a task, impulsive decisions and inertia, and difficulties in switching from one task to another. The letter is characterized by errors in simplifying the program, such as pathological inertia. These include: inert repetition (perseveration) of letters, syllables, words, types of tasks; omissions of letters and syllables; anticipation (anticipation) of letters and sticking together (contamination) of words. Children with regulatory dysgraphia are characterized by difficulties in language analysis, which are a clear manifestation of decreased orienting activity. The inability to distribute attention between the technical side of writing and spelling rules leads to the fact that children do not follow the rules for writing capital letters, unstressed vowels, etc.

The second variant of writing violations, which is highlighted by T.V. Akhutin, is due to the difficulties of maintaining a working state and active tone of the cortex. At the same time, children experience increased fatigue and fluctuations in performance - the level of performance changes during the quarter, week, day, lesson. Usually these children do not immediately get involved in the task, and, having started it, quickly get tired; after some time, the working state returns, but at a reduced level, as a result of which the child gets tired again - lies down on the desk or slides off it. Against the background of fatigue, the child makes a variety of gross mistakes and, above all, those that are typical for children with difficulties in programming and control. Children write slowly, writing skills are automated with great difficulty, muscle tone may increase while writing, and it is difficult for the child to maintain a working posture. The size of the letters, pressure, and inclination fluctuate depending on fatigue.

The third option for the difficulties of writing to T.V. Akhutina defines it as visuospatial dysgraphia of the right hemisphere type. Visual-motor coordination, the ability to correlate movement with vertical and horizontal coordinates, the ability to combine into one whole and remember the general relative position of parts, that is, the perception of a holistic image, depend on the work of the right hemisphere.

Analyzing the writing difficulties of children with this type of dysgraphia, the author identified the characteristics that characterize them: – difficulty in orienting on a notebook sheet, in finding the beginning of a line, difficulties in holding a line; – constant fluctuations in the inclination and height of letters, mismatch of letter elements in size, separate spelling of letters in a word; – delays in updating the graphic and motor images of the desired letter, replacing visually similar and closely written letters (for example, K-N), replacing handwritten letters with printed ones, an unusual way of writing letters, especially capital ones; – stable specularity when writing letters 3, E, e, s; replacing the letters U-CH, d-b, d-c; – the impossibility of developing the skill of ideogram writing (“Class robot”, “keno” instead of “cinema”); – omissions and replacements of vowels, including stressed ones; – violation of the order of letters in a word; – a tendency towards “phonetic” writing (“joyfully” - “radsno”); – difficulties in isolating a holistic image of a word, as a result of which two words, as well as words with prepositions, are written together (later, due to the increased attention paid to the rule of writing prepositions, prefixes are written separately from the roots).

Highlighted features of T.V. Akhutina correlates it with one mechanism - the difficulties of handling spatial information and attempts to compensate for them.

Unlike the “right-hemisphere” ones, “left-hemisphere” difficulties in writing can manifest themselves in the substitution of letters corresponding to sounds that are similar in sound and pronunciation; in violations of programming and control. T.V. Akhutina emphasizes that the described difficulties in writing can be of varying degrees of severity, and they do not necessarily reach the level of severity expected in dysgraphia.

The author notes that errors that have the same external manifestations can have different natures and different mechanisms. Thus, the continuous spelling of words can be associated both with a lack of analysis of linguistic material (due to difficulties in programming and control) and with difficulties in forming a holistic image of the written word. To determine the mechanism of errors, it is necessary to take into account not individual errors, but the entire symptom complex of writing features. Moreover, a reliable conclusion about the mechanism of dysgraphia can be made by comparing the characteristics of writing with the state of other higher mental functions (T.V. Akhutina, 2001).

A.L. Sirotyuk (2003), relying on research by neuropsychologists regarding the complex brain organization of writing, identifies three leading types of writing disorders:

1) speech dysgraphia (motor and sensory), occurring in a syndrome of various forms of disorders;

2) non-speech dysgraphia (gnostic) - occurs in the syndrome of impaired perception: visual, spatial, optical-spatial;

3) dysgraphia as a violation (or lack of formation) of goal-directed behavior, its organization and control, lack of formation of motives.

As noted by E.A. Loginova (2004), psychophysiological, clinical-psychological and neuropsychological consideration of dysgraphia from the perspective of its nature (disturbances of brain mechanisms, disturbances in the formation and development of higher mental functions) are of great importance for elucidating the causes of this defect and its psychopathological mechanisms. Clinical and neuropsychological studies make it possible to expand the understanding of the symptoms of dysgraphia, not limiting it only to errors in writing, but also characterizing the characteristics of the mental organization of a child suffering from a writing disorder.

The understanding of childhood dysgraphia in accordance with the modern theory of speech therapy is reflected in its classification developed by the staff of the Department of Speech Therapy of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after. A.I. Herzen in the 70-80s of the XX century. L.G. took part in the creation of this classification. Paramonova, V.A. Kovshikov, R.I. Lalaeva, L.S. Volkova, G.A. Volkova and other scientists. From the point of view of the speech therapy approach, dysgraphia is understood primarily as a specific violation of language abilities, requiring special pedagogical correction methods. Speech therapy theory connects the causes of dysgraphia in children with the insufficiency of higher mental functions (speech and visual-spatial) that support the writing process, and the mechanism of the disorder with the inferiority of certain writing operations, mainly linguistic.

The understanding of dysgraphia as a speech disorder is due not only to the fact that writing is a type of speech activity, but also to the fact that, according to special (speech therapy) studies, in children of primary school age who do not have any special problems in sensorimotor and mental development, The most common is dysgraphia associated with the insufficiency of certain components of the speech functional system.

The connection between childhood dysgraphia and insufficient speech development or dysfunction of the speech system is reflected in four of the five types of this disorder identified by the pedagogical classification (R.I. Lalaeva, 1997).

Articulatory-acoustic dysgraphia can occur in children who have or have had problems with sound pronunciation. Defective pronunciation of sounds or, if it is overcome, residual inferiority of kinesthetic sensations and ideas cause difficulties for the child to differentiate the articulatory features of a sound and prevent its successful correlation with the corresponding letter. In children with this type of dysgraphia, speaking while writing, which is important for starting to learn to write, is not a full-fledged support for recognizing sounds and sound-letter structuring of words. As a result, in children's writing there are errors in the form of mixtures and omissions of letters.

Dysgraphia based on impaired phoneme recognition is associated with an insufficient level of functioning of the operations of the complex process of distinguishing and selecting phonemes. If any of the operations (auditory analysis, kinesthetic analysis, phoneme selection, auditory and kinesthetic control) are impaired, the entire process of phoneme recognition suffers. In children's writing, this manifests itself in the form of mixtures or even complete replacements of letters in the letter.

With dysgraphia due to a violation of language analysis and synthesis, different types of these complex operations may be defective: dividing a sentence into words and synthesizing a sentence from words, syllabic and phonemic analysis and synthesis. In writing, this dysgraphia manifests itself in distortions in the structure of words and sentences (omissions, rearrangements, additions of letters, syllables, words; merging or breaking words). Phonemic analysis is the most complex, therefore errors in the form of distortion of the sound-letter structure of words are the most common.

Agrammatic dysgraphia is associated with the underdevelopment of the lexical and grammatical structure of speech in children and the immaturity of morphological and syntactic generalizations. Errors with this dysgraphia can manifest themselves at the level of words, phrases, sentences and texts - a violation of semantic and grammatical connections between sentences; distortions of the morphological structure of words; violation of word agreement; distortions of prepositional-case constructions; omissions of members of sentences, etc. Agrammatic dysgraphia manifests itself most clearly towards the end of primary school, i.e. when the morphological principle of writing becomes more significant.

Optical dysgraphia is associated with underdevelopment of visual gnosis and mnesis, analysis and synthesis, and spatial concepts. In writing, it manifests itself in the form of substitutions of graphically similar letters, distortions in the writing of letters, and mirror writing.

Classification developed by specialists from the department of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after. A.I. Herzen, has become widespread in speech therapy practice, since considering the basic mechanisms and manifestations of language and optical disorders in children with dysgraphia, it allows us to correlate the types of dysgraphia with certain directions and correction methods well known to speech therapists. References: 1. Akhutina T.V. Writing difficulties and their neuropsychological diagnostics. // Writing and reading: learning difficulties and correction. - M.-Voronezh, 2001. - P.7-20. 2. Kornev A.N. Reading and writing disorders in children. - St. Petersburg: Rech, 2003 - 336 p. 3. Lalaeva R.I. Impairment of written speech. // Reader on speech therapy. / Ed. L.S. Volkova, V.I. Seliverstova. - M.: Vlados, 1997. - P.502-512. 4. Levina R.E. Disadvantages of reading and writing in children. - M.: Uchpedgiz, 1940. - 72 p. 5. Loginova E.A. Writing disorders. Tutorial. / Ed. Volkova L.S. - St. Petersburg: Detstvo-Press, 2004. - 208 p. 6. Lyapidevsky S.S. Dysgraphia in children and their pathophysiological analysis. // Educational work in special schools. Vol. No. 3. Uchpedgiz, 1953. - P.57-62. 7. Sirotyuk A.L. Neuropsychological and psychophysiological support of training. - M.: Sfera TC, 2003. - 288 p. 8. Tokareva O.A. Reading and writing disorders (dyslexia and dysgraphia). // Speech disorders in children and adolescents. / Under. ed. S.S. Lyapidevsky. - M.: Medicine, 1969. - P.190-212. 9. Khvattsev M.E. Speech therapy. - M.: Uchpedgiz, 1959. - 258 p.

Exercise “Find and Explain”

To complete this task you will need several dictations written by the child. He must explain every comma placed in a particular sentence. If he does not have enough knowledge, he needs to tell the student the rules along the way. It’s even better if the teacher pushes the student to the correct answer so that he can guess and formulate his decision.

When performing the exercise, it is important to remember not to overload the child. It is recommended to parse five to six sentences from each dictation. The correct answer must be stated several times. For example, a comma between the noun “sun” and the pronoun “we” separates parts of a complex sentence. It should be noted that after each dictation it is necessary to work on mistakes.

As part of this task, acoustic dysgraphia is corrected in primary schoolchildren. The “Find and Explain” and “Write Out Loud” exercises are the most effective for solving this problem.

Classification of dysgraphia

There are many classifications of writing disorders. One of the most common, which is based on psychophysiological patterns in the formation of writing skills:

• If the child’s speech-auditory analyzer system is disrupted, this is an acoustic form. The reason for its appearance is the insufficient formation of phonemic processes. Acoustic dysgraphia manifests itself in the form of replacement and confusion of letters in writing. A student confuses letters whose phonemes have similar acoustic characteristics.
• If the functioning of the speech motor unit is disrupted, then an articulatory-acoustic form of dysgraphia may occur. A student confuses letters in writing whose phonemes have similar articulatory characteristics. If a child has incorrect sound pronunciation, then in elementary school most students pronounce the letters silently, which can lead to this form of dysgraphia.
• When the functioning of the visual, spatial and kinesthetic analyzers is disrupted, an optical-spatial form appears. The student has difficulty distinguishing sounds by ear, and the spatial orientation of the letter or its elements is disturbed. The child has difficulty determining the boundaries of sentences and text, seeing lines, etc.

Any of these forms can arise as a consequence of a speech disorder. Therefore, when constructing correction work, it is important to select exercises to correct the defect.

Tasks “Labyrinth” and “Find the missing letter”

These two exercises are quite popular, and most parents use them to develop their child’s abilities. They are also useful for correcting dysgraphia.

“Labyrinth” perfectly develops gross motor skills of children. Currently, there are a huge number of different collections where you can find excellent puzzles. If desired, parents can draw the labyrinths themselves. The child’s main task is to trace with a finger or pen from the beginning of the intricate moves to the end. The organization of prevention and correction of dysgraphia in primary schoolchildren can be based on this exercise. It is the simplest and most universal.

The “Find the Missing Letter” exercise is aimed at developing attentiveness in children. To implement it, you need the source text, where everything is in its place. Then in the same material you need to remove the letters, leaving gaps in their place. The student’s task is to fill in the missing elements. The source text should not be removed, as the child needs something to build on.

When searching for material, you need to take into account the fact that it should interest the student. In this case, completing the task will turn into a game. Recently, dysgraphia has been developing more and more often in younger schoolchildren. Correction, exercises and prevention of this disease are simply necessary to protect the child from unpleasant consequences.

Handwriting correction

The fact is that for a child with dysgraphia, handwriting causes a certain difficulty. Typically, such children write either very small or extremely large. Sloppy handwriting is not a negative thing, and you shouldn’t scold a child for it.

It will take about three weeks to teach a student to write correctly. First, you need to purchase a squared notebook and ask to reproduce the text on paper. The letter should not go beyond the cell - the main rule. You need to monitor this and support the child in every possible way.

You cannot overload children; a few correctly written lines a day are an excellent result. Even if parents are tired of working with their child, it is strictly forbidden to show it, much less raise their tone. It is recommended to use pens with a ribbed surface as writing instruments, as well as pencils in the shape of a triangle.

At home, you can play with your child by giving him a pen and ink. Then he will try to write correctly so as not to spoil the game.

Signs

The presence of dysgraphia can be established no earlier than at 8.5-9 years of age.
This is the age when children's handwriting and writing confidence are established. Only a specialist can determine the presence of dysgraphia: a neuropsychologist or speech therapist. Obvious signs of the disorder are typical, repeated errors that are not related to language knowledge.

As mentioned above, different types of dysgraphia are characterized by different errors. It is important to take into account additional factors: the general development of the child’s fine motor skills, correctness of speech, language environment and general level of intellectual development.

Examples

Different types of dysgraphia cause different typical errors.
A few examples for each case:

• Acoustic and articulatory-acoustic
  : bread – “bread”, game – “caviar”, going to school – “school”. The difference between the first and second forms is that in the case of articulatory-acoustic dysgraphia, the child pronounces words incorrectly, and not just spells them out.
• Lack of formation of language analysis and synthesis
  : find - “na nait”, go to school - “and children’s school”, bear - “mish”.
• Agrammatic
  : the cat sat down - “the cat sat down”, the sun rose - “the sun rose.”
• With optical dysgraphia,
  the style of the letters changes and extra ones are added: shishka - “shishishka”.

Recommendations from professional speech therapists

Many experts in this field highlight the following points:

• Methods for correcting dysgraphia are quite varied, but equally effective. Parents should work with their children, because the child’s future depends on it.
• Completing tasks requires perseverance and patience. In addition, exercises should be done regularly, at least an hour a day.
• If a specialist has specified a large amount of information for processing, then the text must be divided into several parts. This will make it easier for both the child and the adult. Overwork should not be allowed, as this will lead to whims and decreased performance.
• The most common mistake is rewriting homework several times. Parents should not force their children to do this, because it will not lead to anything good. On the contrary, the child will make a large number of mistakes, which will lead to reluctance to study.
• Support is very important, even in the most insignificant situation. Did your child complete the task? You need to praise him, but in moderation. This issue requires delicacy; you cannot overdo it. Never humiliate a child for failure. Moreover, it is forbidden to invent offensive nicknames. This negatively affects the child's psyche.

Prevention

Prevention of dysgraphia in younger schoolchildren can be expressed in impaired auditory recognition of speech sounds. From the age of 3, it is necessary to constantly check this point. If a child of this age has problems, they can be easily solved with regular exercise.

Recently, teaching children a foreign language (most often English) from 3-4 years old has become very popular. Children at this age remember new information well and perceive it easily. However, with the wrong approach to learning, a child may develop dysgraphia or dyslexia.

You should also pay attention to the correct pronunciation of words by adults. If parents repeat after their children, this can lead to certain problems. If a child speaks incorrectly, he must be immediately taught how to do it. Then he will remember better and speech will develop faster.