Causes of dysgraphia in a child and methods of its correction

Children who have just started learning to write try to write neatly. However, the handwriting of most primary school children is clumsy and illegible. Many people write with errors because they do not yet know the basic rules of the Russian language. A child's written speech improves over time, but some children continue to write sloppily, changing letters in places, missing spaces and in the right places. There are a number of signs that should cause parents to become concerned and take their child to see a speech therapist, as they may be symptoms of dysgraphia.

Timely treatment of this disorder is the key to the fact that the child will have competent written speech in the future. That is why it is important to know what dysgraphia is, what its causes and main symptoms are, as well as how this deviation is treated.

Dysgraphia: general information

Dysgraphia is a writing disorder that involves crooked letter writing with multiple misspellings of words. The handwriting of a child with this disorder is illegible, and words may be written in reverse with a large number of grammatical errors. This defect is a consequence of disruption of certain parts of the brain.

Writing impairment, the causes of which lie in the improper functioning of certain parts of the brain, occurs in many children who are beginning to learn the basics of writing. Thus, among second grade students, on average, such a violation occurs in more than half of the class. In the absence of timely treatment, such a deviation entails a decrease in the child’s self-esteem, affects his academic performance, and affects relationships with peers.

Dysgraphia is often accompanied by minor problems with the speech apparatus. This violation has several types and is classified according to severity.

Symptoms and manifestations of dysgraphia

It is not so easy to independently determine dysgraphia in a child. As a rule, parents learn what dysgraphia is only when their children are in elementary school, when they are just learning to write. By mistake, a pathological violation of writing can be confused with the beginning of mastering the norms of the language or simple ignorance of grammar.

Errors in writing with dysgraphia have nothing to do with the child’s inability to apply spelling rules. These errors are numerous, similar, and unique. Substitution of letters, violation of the continuous and separate spelling of words, omissions and rearrangements of letters and syllables in words, incorrect changes in words and the formation of new words, mirror spelling of letters - these symptoms should alert both teachers at school and parents.

Thus, acoustic dysgraphia manifests itself in children in early preschool age. If by the age of 7 a child does not distinguish sounds that are similar in acoustics, then when subsequently learning to write, he often changes one letter to another.

Another symptom of underdeveloped written language is illegible handwriting. Such children write very slowly and unevenly. Often the height and width of letters fluctuates, capital letters are replaced with lowercase ones and vice versa. If a school teacher sees this problem, he will be able to tell about its presence.

Mechanism of occurrence, causes

Writing is a process that requires the coordinated work of the visual, auditory, speech and motor systems. By the time the child masters the basics of writing, he should have mastered oral speech well. If the lateralization of brain functions is not carried out as needed, then a disorder such as dysgraphia develops. Usually these processes are normalized by the time the child begins school.

If the delay in lateralization causes disturbances in a part of the brain, the child develops dysgraphia, which requires correction. Otherwise, the deviation may affect the child’s thinking, memory, and perception.

Causes of occurrence in children

Dysgraphia can be caused by birth trauma. The development of such deviations is provoked by various infectious diseases and improper upbringing. Also, experts do not exclude such a factor as genetic predisposition.

Dysgraphia in children may be accompanied by other concomitant diseases that were previously diagnosed.

Causes of occurrence in adults

In adults, imperfections in written speech can be caused by both internal and external factors. Main reasons for deviation:

• presence of a tumor in the brain;
• low saturation;
• stroke;
• previous brain surgery;
• poor social conditions.

Social factors include insufficient upbringing in childhood, incorrect speech of people around, and lack of communication with others.

With dysgraphia, errors in the process of writing are persistent, despite the fact that the person knows well all the rules of writing words.

Article:

Dysgraphia is a partial specific disorder of the writing process.
Dysgraphia is caused by underdevelopment (decay) of higher mental functions that carry out the normal writing process.

Symptoms of dysgraphia manifest themselves in persistent and repeated errors in the writing process, which can be grouped as follows: distortions and substitutions of letters, distortions of the sound-syllable structure of a word, violations of the unity of the spelling of individual words in a sentence, agrammatism in writing.

Dysgraphia may also be accompanied by non-speech symptoms (neurological disorders, disorders of cognitive activity, perception, memory, attention, mental disorders)…

Dysgraphia (like Dyslexia) in children with normal intelligence can cause various deviations in the formation of personality, certain mental layers. (“Speech therapy” edited by Volkova L.S.)

Classification of Dysgraphia.

“There are several options for classifying dysgraphia. The classification based on the immaturity of certain operations of the writing process (developed by employees of the Department of Speech Therapy of the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute named after A.I. Herzen) is recognized as the most justified. The following types of dysgraphia are distinguished: articulatory-acoustic, based on violations of phonemic recognition, based on violations of language analysis and synthesis, agrammatic and optical dysgraphia.”

ARTICULATORY-ACOUSTIC DYGRAPHIA

The child writes as he pronounces. It is based on the reflection of incorrect pronunciation in writing, relying on incorrect pronunciation. Relying on incorrect pronunciation of sounds during the pronunciation process, the child reflects his defective pronunciation in writing.

A-a Dysgraphia manifests itself in substitutions and omissions of letters corresponding to substitutions and omissions of sounds in oral speech. Most often observed with dysarthria, rhinolalia, dyslalia of a polymorphic nature. Sometimes letter substitutions remain in writing even after they are eliminated in spoken language. In this case, it can be assumed that during internal pronunciation there is not sufficient support for correct articulation, since clear kinesthetic images of sounds have not yet been formed. But replacements and omissions of sounds are not always reflected in the writing. This is due to the fact that in some cases compensation occurs due to preserved functions (for example, due to clear auditory differentiation, due to the formation of phonemic functions).

DYGRAPHIA BASED ON IMPAIRMENTS IN PHONEMIC RECOGNITION

Manifests itself in substitutions of letters corresponding to phonetically similar sounds.
At the same time, in oral speech, sounds are pronounced correctly. Most often, letters denoting the following sounds are replaced: whistling and hissing, voiced and voiceless, affricates and the components that make up them (ch-t, ch-sch, ts-t, ts-s). This type of dysgraphia is also manifested in the incorrect designation of soft consonants in writing due to a violation of the differentiation of hard and soft consonants (“pismo”, “lubit”, “lizhi”). Frequent mistakes are the replacement of vowels even in the stressed position, for example, O-U (cloud - “point”), E-I (forest - “fox”). In its most striking form, dysgraphia based on violations of phonemic recognition is observed in sensory alalia and aphasia. In severe cases, letters denoting distant articulatory and acoustic sounds (l-k, b-v, p-n) are mixed. in this case, the pronunciation of sounds corresponding to the mixed letters is normal.

There is no consensus on the mechanisms of this type of dysgraphia. This is due to the complexity of the phoneme recognition process.

Correct writing requires a sufficient level of functioning of all operations of the process of distinguishing and selecting phonemes. If any link is violated (auditory, kinesthetic analysis, phoneme selection operation, auditory and kinesthetic control), the entire process of phonemic recognition becomes difficult, which manifests itself in the replacement of letters in the letter. Therefore, taking into account the impaired operations of phonemic recognition, the following subtypes of this form of dysgraphia can be distinguished: acoustic, kinesthetic, phonemic.

DYGRAPHIA DUE TO VIOLATIONS OF LANGUAGE ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS

It is based on a violation of various forms of language analysis and synthesis: dividing sentences into words, syllabic and phonemic analysis and synthesis.
The underdevelopment of language analysis and synthesis manifests itself in writing in distortions of the structure of words and sentences... The most typical errors are: omissions of consonants when they are combined (dictation - “dikat”, school - “kola”); vowel omissions (dog – “sbaka”, house – “dma”); permutations of letters (path - “prota”, window - “kono”); adding letters (taskali - “tasakali”); omissions, additions, rearrangement of syllables (room - “kota”, glass - “kata”).

Violation of the division of sentences into words in this type of dysgraphia manifests itself in the continuous spelling of words, especially prepositions, with other words (it is raining - “Idedosh”, in the house - “in the house”); separate spelling of the word (a white birch tree grows near the window - “belabe zaratet oka”); separate writing of the prefix and the root of the word (stepped - “stepped on”).

AGRAMMATIC DISGRAPHY

associated with underdevelopment of the grammatical structure of speech: morphological, syntactic generalizations.
This type of D. can manifest itself at the level of words, phrases, sentences and texts and is part of a broader symptom complex - lexico-grammatical underdevelopment, which is observed in children with dysarthria, alalia and the mentally retarded. In coherent written speech, children show great difficulties in establishing logical and linguistic connections between sentences.

At the sentence level, agrammatisms in writing are manifested in distortion of the morphological structure of the word, replacement of prefixes (prefixes), suffixes (overwhelmed - “overwhelmed”, goats - “kids”); changing case endings (“many trees”); violation of prepositional constructions (above the table - “on the table”); changing the case of pronouns (near him - “about him”); number of nouns (“children are running”); violation of agreements (“Bela Dom”); There is also a violation of the syntactic format of speech, which manifests itself in difficulties in constructing complex sentences, omissions of sentence members, and violation of the sequence of words in a sentence.

OPTICAL DYSGRAPHY

associated with underdevelopment of visual gnosis, analysis and synthesis, spatial representations, manifested in substitutions and distortions of letters in writing.
Most often, graphically similar handwritten letters are replaced: consisting of identical elements, but differently located in space (V-D, T-SH); including the same elements, but differing in additional elements (I-Sh, P-T, H-Zh, L-M); mirror writing of letters, omission of elements, especially when connecting letters that include the same element, unnecessary and incorrectly located elements.

Optical dysgraphia also includes mirror writing, which is sometimes observed in left-handed people, as well as in cases of organic brain damage.

(“Speech therapy” edited by Volkova L.S.)

Treatment and Prognosis . Dysgraphia is usually diagnosed in the second half of first grade, when the child has learned to read and write. Until this time, errors in writing are evolutionary dysgraphia. If a large number of errors in writing are detected, it is necessary to contact a speech therapist and a psychologist, since it is necessary to distinguish dysgraphia (a speech therapy problem) from errors caused by “attention deficit disorder” (corrected by a psychologist), from writing disorders due to aphasia (treatment by a neurologist and speech therapist) , with mental retardation and decreased intelligence (speech pathologist, speech therapist)… With targeted correctional and speech therapy, the symptoms of dysgraphia are gradually smoothed out.

Types of dysgraphia

Dysgraphia can be the result of various reasons. Signs and symptoms of the disorder may vary. The method of rehabilitation and duration of treatment also depend on the type of deviation.

Optical

It is difficult for a child to write letters correctly; he may skip them when writing words, or add unnecessary elements in the form of strokes and sticks. Due to incompletely formed visual-spatial connections, the child often misses letters, writes them incorrectly, and confuses them with others.

Acoustic

Characterized by a lack of ability to correctly recognize sounds. The patient confuses similar-sounding letters and may make mistakes in the degree of softness of the pronounced sounds.

Articulatory-acoustic

The child writes and pronounces letters incorrectly and replaces them with similar sounds. Requests from parents and teachers to pay attention to the correct pronunciation and spelling do not bring results. With this form of disorder, work aimed at auditory differentiation of the child is required. Only by carrying out such corrective work is it possible to completely get rid of the problem.

Ungrammatical

This type of violation is characterized by the fact that the child, when pronouncing and writing, confuses case endings, misses or replaces prepositions with others. This deviation is a consequence of speech disorders.

Disorder caused by defective processes of analysis and synthesis

The main symptoms of this disorder are omitting or replacing letters with others, adding extra syllables, and spelling several words in a row. Such a deviation is preceded by social, psychological, and educational factors, which become the main cause of disturbances in the analysis and synthesis of speech.

Signs of the disease

Dysgraphia is a diagnosis that should be made by a specialist. The deviation can easily be confused with a common misunderstanding of grammar that occurs in most children. With dysgraphia, the mistakes that a child makes while writing are in no way related to the level of knowledge of the Russian language. The teacher at school, as well as the student’s parents, should be wary if the child repeatedly makes the same mistakes: misses letters, confuses the combined and separate spelling of words. In addition, such a child’s handwriting is illegible, and the size of the letters constantly changes from small to large, not only in one sentence, but also in one word. The writing speed is very slow. Often, children with dysgraphia are given poor grades due to mistakes and poor handwriting, which greatly affects the child’s academic performance and self-esteem. That is why it is very important to promptly identify a violation of written speech in a child, find out the cause of the deviation in order to undergo a course of correction.

Dysgraphia and its types

Dysgraphia is a disorder in the writing process that manifests itself in regular errors of one type when writing.

With a normally formed intellect, most often these disorders go along with vocabulary disorders, when a person experiences difficulties in correctly pronouncing words - dyslexia. Separately, dysgraphia and dyslexia are quite rare.

There are several types of dysgraphia:

• Acoustic. With this type, the child pronounces all the letters, but when writing, he may experience difficulties with sounds that sound paired.
• Ungrammatical. This type of dysgraphia is usually detected only in the second or third grade of school, when the child has already learned the basic rules of grammar. The problem is the declension by gender and number. Incorrect agreement of the main parts of the sentence. Most often, this type of dysgraphia is present in children with underdeveloped speech.
• Optical. Children with this type of dysgraphia make mistakes when writing, adding extra details to letters or not finishing them completely.
• Mirror writing is also a type of optical dysgraphia. If a child loses a word when writing or writes it again, allows syllables in a word to be swapped, or misses spaces between words, we should talk about a violation of language analysis and synthesis.
• Articulatory-acoustic dysgraphia is present in children with speech defects who transfer incorrect pronunciation to writing.

A child may have one of the listed types of dysgraphia, or several.

Confirmation of the diagnosis and correction of dysgraphia is carried out with the help of a speech therapist and independent work to eliminate the causes. It is important to consult a specialist at the first suspicion of the presence of a particular deviation. Each type of dysgraphia requires its own approaches and its own program is selected for each child.

Diagnosis of dysgraphia

Only a specialist who has previously diagnosed the disorder using special studies can prescribe an appropriate course for dysgraphia correction. In addition, consultation with specialists such as a neurologist and speech therapist is necessary to make a diagnosis.

The examination of the patient includes several stages, the first of which is to assess the condition of the central nervous system, vision, and hearing of the patient. Then specialists analyze the child’s articulation and motor skills. Important stages include assessing sound pronunciation, vocabulary, and literacy level. A writing assessment is then required, with experts taking into account whether the patient is right-handed or left-handed.

For the purpose of research, the child will be asked to write down words under dictation, rewrite capital and printed letters, and perform special exercises. After analyzing the information obtained during the study, the speech therapist makes a diagnosis and gives the necessary recommendations on how to correct written speech disorders, if any.

Correction and treatment

When a child’s written speech is discovered to be unformed, parents immediately have questions about how to treat dysgraphia, what to do with this disorder, and whether complete correction is possible. With a competent approach from specialists and the support of parents and teachers, overcoming dysgraphia in younger schoolchildren is possible.

Parents should be patient, as this process of working to overcome dysgraphia in a child is not quick. It may take months and sometimes years of painstaking work. It is more difficult to work with older children because, along with writing problems, other accompanying deviations arise.

Correction of the disorder is tailored to the type of disorder and the age of the child. Based on the results of the studies, measures aimed at preventing or treating dysgraphia are prescribed.

Eliminating a problem such as dysgraphia is impossible quickly and alone. It is possible that to correct dysgraphia, the child will need the help of specialized specialists, such as a neuropsychologist, psychotherapist, or child psychologist. Speech school for children with more severe written language disabilities will be more appropriate and productive than regular school.

The main contribution to the correction of the disease is made by the work of a competent speech therapist. It is this specialist who prepares exercises to fill gaps in sound pronunciation, lexico-grammatical structure of speech, in the formation of phonemic recognition, sound-syllable structure of words, spatial representations, motor skills and other mental functions.

Among the effective methods for correcting dysgraphia are:

• special written exercises aimed at recognizing and distinguishing elements of similar letters in cases of optical dysgraphia;
• tasks aimed at developing perception, memory and thinking;
• To form language analysis and synthesis, many speech games are used: Typesetter, Ladder, Speech Arithmetic and others. Children learn to guess and invent riddles and puzzles;
• special work aimed at developing the lexical and grammatical structure of speech;
• for acoustic dysgraphia, interesting tasks are carried out on the formation of phonemic recognition at the level of sounds, letters, syllables, words, phrases, sentences and texts;
• in case of impaired sound pronunciation, tasks are given to produce sounds, automate them in speech and differentiate them from sounds similar in pronunciation. For example, with a distorted pronunciation of the sound [l], it is not only placed and automated, but also distinguished from the sounds: [l'], [r], r'] and [v], if the child confuses them in oral speech.

If there are organic causes of dysgraphia, drug treatment may be necessary. The attending physician may prescribe rehabilitation therapy in the form of massage, physical therapy, and physiotherapy. These procedures will help treat the organic cause, allowing the speech therapist to correct the disorder.

Methods for correcting dysgraphia

The method of correction depends on the severity of the child’s written language impairment. In addition, the method of treating the deviation is influenced by the degree of neglect, as well as the characteristics of the patient. Correction is a long and complex process that requires persistence on the part of teachers and parents, patience, endurance and a positive attitude of the patient. If you follow all the necessary recommendations, dysgraphia can be completely cured. It is better if the disorder is diagnosed at an earlier age, since the course of correction for older schoolchildren is longer due to the presence in most cases of additional speech and writing disorders. In this case, the time required for rehabilitation will take more. There is also a high risk that the violation cannot be eliminated completely.

It is impossible to get rid of dysgraphia on your own. This process requires the participation of many highly specialized specialists, for example, a psychologist, a neuropsychologist. However, the main work falls on the speech therapist, who will have to select a rehabilitation program appropriate to the severity of the disease and the individual characteristics of the patient. The specialist individually selects the necessary sound pronunciation exercises. Classes are aimed at improving motor skills, developing the patient’s lexical and grammatical structure, as well as improving phonemic speech recognition.

Methods for correcting dysgraphia, which are among the most effective:

• Exercises through which the patient learns to correctly understand sounds, words, and letters.
• Tasks aimed at training memory, improving thinking, and developing perception.
• Exercises necessary for the patient to learn to correctly recognize letters that are similar in appearance.
• Proper production of sounds, work on speech automation.
• Educational games to improve sound analysis.

In some cases, specialists include drug treatment, physiotherapy, massage, and exercise therapy in the rehabilitation course. This often applies to patients whose dysgraphia was caused by organic causes. It is important to know that drug treatment should be prescribed exclusively by a qualified specialist.

Speech therapy correction

Auditory differentiation of sounds is what needs to be achieved initially when treating dysgraphia. If a child cannot distinguish sounds, then further exercises will not be effective. The rehabilitation period is determined individually and depends on many factors. Classes with a speech therapist are possible both in a group with other children and individually. It depends on the wishes of the child and his parents.

During classes, the speech therapist gives the child verbal and visual exercises, as well as practical lessons, during which correctional work takes place.

Exercises you can do at home

Since it is impossible to get rid of dysgraphia on your own, experts, in addition to basic classes, recommend doing additional exercises at home to consolidate the results obtained with a speech therapist.

Exercises that can be done at home should also be agreed upon with a speech therapist. It is important that parents supervise the technique and regularity of classes. The simplest but most effective exercises that you can do at home with your parents include:

1. Labyrinth. The child draws a line on a piece of paper, moving only his hand. You cannot make breaks or change the position of the sheet.
2. Search for objects or pictures. The child searches for and paints the objects found.
3. Exercises aimed at developing attention. The child must read the text and look for missing letters or words, writing them in the right places.
4. Improved articulation. The child learns songs, rhymes, and tongue twisters.
5. Logorhythmics.

To get a positive result as quickly as possible, home exercises should be performed regularly. This will significantly shorten the rehabilitation period.

"Prevention of dysgraphia in primary schoolchildren."

Article on the topic:

"Prevention of dysgraphia in primary schoolchildren."

Performed by teacher-speech therapist MKOU KSSH No. 2

Eskina L.I.

Prevention of dysgraphia in primary schoolchildren.

The main direction of our work, as teachers and speech therapists in primary schools, is preventive work to prevent violations of written speech and reading. Written speech is formed in conditions of targeted and systematic learning. The writing process consists of the following operations: - analysis of the sound composition of a word, - translation of phonemes into graphemes, graphic signs, - translation of graphemes into movements necessary for writing. Children with dysgraphia need special speech therapy support; specific errors in writing cannot be corrected using conventional methods. These violations are much easier to prevent than to eliminate later. Purposeful development of mental functions necessary for full mastery of writing and reading is the main method of prevention. The work includes the following areas:

1. Development of fine and gross motor skills, graphomotor skills. Exercises: “Labyrinths”. Labyrinths are good for developing fine and gross motor skills, attention, and continuous line. The child is offered mazes of varying complexity, depending on his level. “Body letters” - come up with a way to show a letter using the body and fingers; “Trace the letter” - according to the contour image, by dots; “Writing in the air” the speech therapist draws shapes and letters in the air, and the child must recognize it.

2. Development of visual perception, improvement of hand-eye coordination. Exercises: “Count to 30” Development of visual attention. There are 30 numbers drawn on the card, which are not in order. The child must name and show all the numbers in order. The game “Find all the letters” is played in a similar way.

3. Development of the sense of touch, smell, determination of various properties of objects. Exercises: “What letter?” From the given letters, the child forms a word by feeling the letters in order with his eyes closed. "Draw the letter ". Using your finger, draw a geometric figure (triangle, circle), letters. The child guesses what they drew.

4. Development of auditory perception, formation of the ability to isolate and distinguish sounds, development of the ability to differentiate sounds, syllables, words, phrases, sentences. Exercises: “House for sound.” Development of phonemic analysis. You need to find the place of the sound in the word and the number of syllables in the word, make a diagram of the word from the picture. "Find differences?" Development of phonemic analysis Description: The child must compare 2 words, what has changed in the word. For example: bear-mouse. "Encryption". Develops phonemic analysis and synthesis. The child needs to select the first sound from sequentially laid out pictures in order to get a new word. 5. Development of perception of time and space, improvement of orientation in one’s body, in a linear series, on a sheet, formation of the ability to navigate in the sequence of events.

Exercises: “Name the letter” Stimulates the child’s orientation on a sheet of paper. The child is given a card with 3 columns and 3 lines, with cut-out letters in the cells. The location of the letter is described, the child finds it and names it. “Proofreading” The student is asked to cross out the indicated letters in the continuous text. You need to start with one letter, increasing the number of letters. “Missing letters” There are missing letters in the text offered to the child. To do this, the child is given a hint text where the missing letters are in place. The exercise helps develop attention and confidence in writing skills.

Preventive work to prevent reading and writing disorders allows you to fully master written language and influences the child’s success.

Eskina L.I.

teacher speech therapist

MKOU KSSH No. 2

Kargat

The role of prevention in the “fight” against dysgraphia in primary schoolchildren.

Recently, the number of children experiencing difficulties in mastering the school curriculum has increased.

One of the reasons for “school maladaptation” is a violation of written speech. Writing disorders are quite common among students in public schools; they hinder the full development of school knowledge. Every year the number of children with reading and writing deficiencies is increasing. This phenomenon is far from accidental. The reasons for it go back to preschool and even earlier ages.

Therefore, it is no coincidence that the problem of correcting writing disorders (dysgraphia) is of interest to specialists.

Often children with general speech underdevelopment later find themselves unable to master the school curriculum without special training. This category of students is included in the so-called risk group for those who fail in the Russian language.

The term “dysgraphia” refers to persistent writing impairments that are not associated with ignorance of grammatical rules, but are caused by underdevelopment or partial damage to those brain mechanisms that ensure the complex process of writing.

Dysgraphic errors are expressed in omissions and rearrangements of letters in words, in replacing some letters with others, in “mirror” spelling of letters, etc. The reason for this may be a violation or underdevelopment of phonemic functions, immaturity of the lexico-grammatical structure of speech and visual-spatial functions. The appearance of such errors indicates that the child is not ready to start school. If already at preschool age one of the functions directly related to the writing process is clearly “delayed,” then later this will certainly manifest itself in writing in the form of specific errors. For example, if a child has not yet formed visual-spatial concepts and visual analysis and synthesis by the beginning of school, then he will not be able to fully master the shapes of letters, and will inevitably confuse them in writing. Or a child who cannot distinguish acoustically similar sounds by ear will certainly allow letter substitutions in writing, but for a completely different reason.

But, if these or similar “imperfections” can be identified already in preschool age and if their most direct and immediate connection with one or another type of dysgraphia inevitably appearing in the future, then this gives us the right to talk about the existence of prerequisites for dysgraphia. Understanding this circumstance points to a more rational way of “fighting” this form of speech pathology. This “struggle” should begin not at school, but in preschool age, long before the child begins to learn to read and write. And the main efforts should be aimed at eliminating the existing preconditions for dysgraphia. Otherwise, the child goes to school completely unprepared for learning, as a result of which the child develops not only dysgraphic, but also grammatical and spelling errors.

Children suffering from dysgraphia need special speech therapy help, since specific writing errors cannot be overcome by regular school methods. However, combining such assistance with the process of schooling is associated with a large additional burden for the child.

For a global solution to this very complex problem, it is much more important to talk about ways to prevent dysgraphia in preschool children than about ways to overcome it in schoolchildren.

In order for the work on the prevention of dysgraphia to be more productive, not only educators, but also parents should be involved in it. It is difficult for non-specialists to independently identify the prerequisites and carry out work to prevent dysgraphia. Therefore, the speech therapist introduces parents to specific ways to identify these prerequisites and methodological techniques that allow parents to eliminate them before the child arrives at school and prevent the appearance of dysgraphia.

Prerequisites for successful mastery of writing and reading.

Hearing function

Man lives in a world of sounds, so a full-fledged, finely developed hearing plays a huge role in his life. And in modern civilized society, the role of full-fledged hearing for a person has not only not decreased, but even increased. Many parents underestimate the importance of the role of hearing in the development of full speech in a child. For this reason, they are sometimes careless about ear diseases that occur in children, the undertreatment of which in most cases leads to loss or decreased hearing.

But there are hearing disorders of a different nature that are little known to parents. They consist in the fact that a normally hearing child is not able to distinguish acoustically close sounds by ear. Most often, auditory differentiation of the following pairs of acoustically or articulatory sounds is difficult:

voiced - deaf (p-b, t-d, k-g, f-v, s-z, sh-zh);

soft - hard (b-b, v-v, g-g, d-d, z-z, k-k, l-l, m-m, n-n, p-p, r-ry, s- s, t-t, f-f, x-x);

whistling - hissing (s-sh, z-zh, h-sch, sh-ch, h-ts, w-sh, s-ts, s-t, t-ts, sh-t, h-t);

sonorant consonants (l-r, l-r) and j.

Sound analysis of words.

To fully master reading and writing, the ability to differentiate speech sounds by ear is not enough; you also need to learn sound analysis and synthesis of words. Therefore, a first-grader must accurately determine the first sound in a word, the last sound in a word, the place of a certain sound in a word (beginning, middle, end), the sequence of sounds in a word (What is the first sound, second sound, third sound in the word “poppy”?), number of sounds in a word (How many sounds are there in the word “house”?).

Sound pronunciation.

One of the important links in the development of speech in a child is his mastery of correct sound pronunciation.

A first-grader must correctly pronounce all the sounds of his native language in words, in phrasal speech. He should not miss sounds, distort them, or replace them with others.

If a child has incorrect, distorted, inaccurate, unclear pronunciation of many or individual sounds, then it is necessary to contact a speech therapist, since defective pronunciation can affect the child’s academic performance, both in elementary school and in high school.

Lexicon.

The development of vocabulary in children is closely related to the immediate speech environment, since speech is learned by imitation.

By school age, a child’s vocabulary should contain up to 1500–2000 words. The child must actively use generalizing words, synonyms, antonyms, and words related to various parts of speech in his speech.

Grammatical structure.

By the age of 7, a child should be able to understand grammatical structures, as well as correctly form words and construct sentences.

During the period of mastering the grammatical systems of a language, a child’s speech usually contains “age-related” agrammatisms (errors), for example: windows, chairs, foreheads, and not windows, chairs, foreheads. Up to a certain age, such mistakes are completely justified (up to 4 years), so the child learns these forms. However, their persistence in a child’s speech at 7 years old should cause concern.

Coherent speech.

The entire process of schooling is structured in such a way that it is completely unthinkable without fluency in coherent speech. These include oral responses in class, written presentations, essays and much more.

By the age of 7, a child should be quite active in communication, be able to listen and understand speech, build communication taking into account the situation, come into contact with children and adults, express his thoughts clearly and consistently, and use forms of speech etiquette.

Fine motor skills.

The purely technical side of the writing process is impossible without sufficiently developed fine manual motor skills. Weakness, clumsiness, underdevelopment of the hand, the inability to carry out subtle differentiated movements do not allow the student to develop good handwriting, withstand prolonged tension in the hand muscles during the writing process, or keep up with the pace of the class. The state of fine manual motor skills has a great influence on the development of the child’s speech function as a whole.

The richer and more correct a child’s speech, the wider his capabilities, the more complete his relationships with children and adults. Conversely, a child’s unclear, poorly developed speech greatly complicates his relationships with peers, often leaves an imprint on the child’s character, and interferes with successful learning at school.

Bibliography:

1. Efimenkova L.N. Correction of oral and written speech of public school students M., 1991.

2. Kornev A.N. Reading and writing disorders in children: Educational and methodological manual. St. Petersburg, 1997

3. Paramonova L.G. Prevention and elimination of dysgraphia in children. - St. Petersburg: Soyuz Publishing House, 2001.

4. Povalyaeva M.A. Prevention and correction of written speech disorders: Rostov n/d: Phoenix, 2006.

5. Sadovnikova I.N.: Impairments in written speech and their overcoming in primary schoolchildren. M, Education, 1995.

Forecast, preventive measures

The prognosis for the treatment of dysgraphia depends on a number of factors: the timeliness of the measures taken, the severity of the deviation, its form, the reasons that provoked the formation of the written speech disorder, as well as the individual characteristics of the patient. Only through the well-coordinated work of specialists, the patience and perseverance of parents, as well as the positive attitude of the child, can a positive result be obtained in the end. The problem associated with impaired written speech can be completely corrected in more than 80% of cases.

Parents of a child who has been diagnosed with dysgraphia should be aware that the lack of a timely response can lead in the future to:

• Poor academic performance, which is fraught with intellectual retardation in the development of the child.
• The appearance of suspiciousness and anxiety.
• The emergence of problems with peers.

In addition, an advanced form of dysgraphia is the cause of a child’s deviant behavior and low self-esteem.

For a child with an advanced form of dysgraphia, the need to write something will always cause discomfort. This leads not only to poor academic performance, but also to a complete lack of desire to learn and master new material.

Prevention of dysgraphia

Experts cannot name the exact causes of dysgraphia. In addition, it is believed that such a violation of written speech cannot be prevented. However, there are known risk groups whose representatives more often suffer from the presence of such a deviation. This:

• Bilingual children;
• Patients with mental retardation
• Children who were retrained to write with their right hand
• Hyperactive children
• Children who started learning too early

Prevention measures include training memory and attentiveness, increasing vocabulary. It is important to know that if a child constantly makes the same mistakes when writing words, there is no need to postpone visiting a speech therapist until later. If a child has a written speech disorder, the sooner correctional work is started, the faster and easier it will be to get rid of the problem, which is fraught with serious consequences for the child in the future.

What is dysgraphia? How do you know if your child has dysgraphia?

As a rule, parents and teachers learn that a child has problems with writing (dysgraphia) only when teaching writing, that is, in elementary school. Dysgraphia is a specific writing disorder when a child writes words with phonetic errors or errors in recording sounds. Instead of “p” he writes “b”, instead of “t” - “d”, forms syllables incorrectly, adds extra letters, omits necessary ones, writes several words together.

Dysgraphia can be mistakenly mistaken for simply ignorance of grammatical rules, but the problem lies deeper.

Compare “sentence” - “suggestion” and “sentence” - “addition”. In this example, the difference between simple ignorance of the correct spelling (rules) and dysgraphia is clearly visible.

Moreover, the handwriting of such children is often illegible and uneven. When writing, the child shows a lot of effort, but writes very slowly. If such a child studies in a class with ordinary children, he may experience serious worries because of his mistakes, slowness, and the teacher’s dissatisfaction. In speech, a child with dysgraphia often cannot construct long sentences and prefers to remain silent or speak briefly. Because of this, the dysgraphic person does not have full communication with his peers, and it seems to him that his classmates are opposed to him.

Unfortunately, this is a rather serious problem that “does not go alone”: most often dysgraphia manifests itself together with dyslexia, a reading problem, and the child may also have problems with speech and disorders of other physical functions.