LANGUAGE DISORDERS: TYPES AND THEIR CAUSES - ECONOMÍA - 2025

The disorders of language are complete or partial difficulties of a person when it comes to communicate effectively in the environment. They affect important areas of the person's cognitive, emotional, communicative and social functioning.

The disorders that can occur are many and varied, affecting one or more components of language and varying in etiology, development and prognosis and in the specific educational needs that they generate.

In school children who do not have genetic or neurological disorders, the prevalence of language disorders is between 2 and 3%, and the prevalence of speech disorders between 3 and 6%. In younger children, preschoolers, about 15%, and it is also more frequent in girls than in boys.

We consider that a language is normal when its use is precise in the words that are used according to their meaning, the child presents an optimal vocabulary in quality and quantity, articulates well, with an adequate rhythm and a precise and concordant intonation.

It should be noted that in children's language, since it is developing, skills may be more imprecise and not for this reason considered pathological. Sometimes, without intervention, the apparent problem will disappear without sequelae.

Classification of language disorders

-Speech disorders

Dislalia

Dyslalia consists of the difficulty to be able to pronounce sounds (for example, consonants). It is a phonetic alteration and is usually a temporary problem.

There is an inability to produce phonemes of a given language and there is no organic or neurological cause that can justify it. The affectation, in this case, occurs in the phonoarticulator device.

Dyslalias are classified as evolutionary (those that appear in phonemes in evolutionary development) and functional (when they are alterations that should already be acquired for that age).

When a person has dyslalia, they can omit, distort, substitute or insert phonemes and it is the characteristic that would indicate that we are facing this problem.

The cause of dyslalia can occur due to deficits in auditory and phonological perception or discrimination, or due to auditory memory problems, because there are oral motor difficulties or due to problems in the development environment.

Dysarthria

Dysarthria is a neuromuscular disorder that affects speech articulation.

It encompasses a series of motor speech disorders that result from damage to the nervous system and manifested in alterations in the muscular control of speech mechanisms.

There are difficulties in the articulation, in the oral expression and that affects the tone and the movements in the articular muscles due to injuries in the Central Nervous System.

Thus, other elements of speech such as intonation or rhythm may also be involved, in addition to other activities where the vocal organs also have a function such as chewing or coughing.

One of the disorders where it occurs is in cerebral palsy, tumors and also in Parkinson's disease.

Dysglossia

A person with dysglossia is one who has a joint disorder and which is due to organic problems in the peripheral organs of speech.

In this sense, problems occur in the phonemes in which the affected organs intervene, and the person omits, distorts or substitutes various phonemes.

We can classify it into labial (for example, cleft lip), lingual (for example: due to frenulum), dental (for example: missing teeth), nasal (for example: vegetations), palatal (for example: cleft palate)) or maxillary (eg, malocclusion).

Dysphemia or stuttering

It is the difficulty that arises in terms of language fluency. It is an alteration in the rhythm of speech manifesting itself in interruptions in the flow of speech.

In dysphemia, speech production is interrupted by abnormal production in the repetition of segments, syllables, words, phrases, air flow is obstructed, there may be strange intonation patterns. They are also accompanied by high muscle tension, anxiety, etc.

The cause is unknown, but it may be due to interacting organic and environmental problems: neurological, genetic, environmental, psychological factors, feedback error…

In addition, they can be classified as developmental dysphemia, which appears at the beginning of language and occurs because the amount of ideas that the child wants to communicate and the abilities that he shows to express himself are not adjusted. Thus, it makes repetitions to organize the discourse and disappears with maturation.

On the other hand, there is chronic dysphemia, which lasts for years and can last into adulthood. It can be tonic (due to blockages or spasms), chronic

(due to repetitions) or mixed.

Taquilalia

It is a speech with an accelerated rhythm, very fast and hasty. Articulation deficiencies can be added, affecting intelligibility.

It is usually caused by inappropriate speech patterns or behavioral haste.

Bradilalia

It is excessively slow speech, and the cause is often neurological. It appears in motor or neurological disabilities.

-Oral language disorders

Simple Language Delay (RSL)

It is an evolutionary language difficulty, where there is a lag. Children do not present alterations of another type such as intellectual, motor or sensory alterations.

In general, it affects different areas of language and mainly affects syntax and phonology. Also, understanding is better than expression. Children with RSL tend to present a basic grammar, with slang, lack of connections and prepositions, lexical delay, etc.

It is usually a very frequent reason for consultation in young children. And the difference between RSL and TEL, which I will explain to you next, is not clear, generally following the limits of gravity.

What really confirms the diagnosis is its evolution, which in this case is usually favorable, so anticipating the prognosis is quite complicated.

Dysphasia or Specific Language Disorder (SLI)

Dysphasia is a language disorder with an undefined cause, probably multifactorial and genetic. It is a lack of language learning in a child in the absence of any organic, cognitive or environmental disorder.

The child with SLI is diagnosed after having verified that they do not have hearing impairment, that they present intelligence within the norm, they do not have neurological damage and they do not develop in an environment of stimulating deprivation.

Such alteration cannot be explained by problems of any kind such as intellectual, sensory, motor, neurological or psychopathological; if there is a problem such as an intellectual disability, the language deficiencies should not be explained by the problem.

In practice, it is difficult to distinguish it from simple language delay, and it is usually diagnosed when the severity is greater, since here it is acquired later and is more serious both phonetically and in structure.

In TEL there are difficulties in the acquisition (understanding and / or expression) of spoken or written language. It can include all or some of the components: phonological, semantic, morphological, pragmatic….

Different subtypes of SLI are described depending on the aspect to which attention is paid. Thus, there are different classifications and the simplest and most accepted distinguishes between expressive language disorder and mixed receptive-expressive disorder.

Aphasia

Aphasias are acquired language disorders, where an involution of already acquired functions takes place as a result of trauma, infection, ischemia or tumors.

It occurs due to a lesion of the central nervous system, in areas of the left cerebral hemisphere that intervene in the understanding and production of language. It affects oral and written language and we find different modalities.

We distinguish Broca's aphasia, where the ability to express oneself orally is lost, Wernicke's, where there is an inability to understand language, conduction, with an inability to repeat.

In addition, we find transcortical sensory and motor aphasias and anomic aphasia, where the person cannot access the lexicon.

In older children, Broca's (expressive / motor) and Wernicke's (receptive / sensory) types of aphasia are also distinguished, depending on how we find the lesion.

Selective mutism

A child with selective mutism is one who does not want to talk in certain situations or people. However, in other situations it does. An example could be the child who talks at home, with family and friends and yet does not speak when at school.

They have no real difficulty in understanding and speaking, it is more specifically considered an anxiety disorder.

All articulatory or language deficits that may be behind selective mutism should be ruled out.

-Written language disorders

Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a language disorder manifested by problems in learning to read in a child who is old enough to develop it.

Therefore, it is the inability to learn writing in a normal way. Developmental dyslexia, which is related to maturation and has a good prognosis, and secondary, which is related to neurological problems, can be distinguished.

Dysgraphia

Dysgraphia are functional disorders that often affect the quality of writing. It manifests itself in the lack of sufficiency to be able to assimilate and correctly use the symbols of language.

Different types of dysgraphia are found depending on the symptoms, such as:

- Acoustic dysgraphia: difficulty in acoustically perceiving phonemes and analyzing and synthesizing the sound composition of words.

- Optical dysgraph: visual representation and perception are altered, so that the letters are not recognized separately and are not related to their sounds.

- Motor dysgraphia: there is fine motor difficulty affecting motor connections with the sound of words

- Agrammatic dysgraphia: changes in the grammatical structures of writing.

Dysorthography

It is a specific problem of writing, where there is a substitution or an omission of letters and can have various causes. They do not occur in

reading.

It focuses on the ability to transmit the spoken and written linguistic code and will be detected through writing.

-Voice disorders

Dysphonia

Dysphonia is an alteration in the voice that can occur in any of its qualities. It involves a loss of voice, changes in tone and timbre…

The cause is usually a poor voice technique, it can be due to organic disorders or lack of muscular, vocal or respiratory coordination.

Rhinophony

It is a vocal alteration where the voice presents nasal resonance. It is due to problems, for example, nasal obstruction.

We find several types, such as the open one, where the air comes out when phonemes are emitted or the closed one, where the nose is obstructed and nasal phonemes are prevented from being emitted.

-Psycholinguistic disorders

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

We find different communication and language disorders in the spectrum of autism disorders.

Children with ASD present stereotyped behaviors, problems in social interaction and also in language. In fact, this is usually one of the most frequent reasons for consultation with a child with ASD.

Within this disorder we can find different problems in language, either its complete absence, echolalia, problems in prosody, understanding, phonology, pragmatic deficit…

There is an alteration in communication and especially in the pragmatic component of language.

Intellectual disability

Language problems are also sometimes related to intellectual disability. In addition, some of the children who consult for language delay eventually have an intellectual disability.

In intellectual disability there is a delay in neurological and sensory maturation, so that deficits are found in auditory and visual perception and when it comes to processing information optimally.

In the case of DI, there may be a delay when starting the language, which may be slower or imprecise in terms of organization.

Later, problems also occur in conjugation, in the use of adverbs and adjectives, absence of articles, prepositions, poverty of concepts and content, and sometimes limited understanding.

In this case, the understanding and production of language will depend on the cognitive level of each individual.

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