Dysgrammatism: Causes, Symptoms & Treatment

If dysgrammatism is present, the acquisition of the grammatical rule system is delayed or impeded. This means that correct sentence structure may be disturbed. As a result, parts of sentences are rearranged and omitted.

What is dysgrammatism?

Dysgrammatism belongs to the language development disorders. This is noticeable in the affected person by the fact that grammatical rules are incorrectly applied in the formation of sentences as well as the inflection of words. Sentences are formed incompletely or parts of sentences are twisted. It is particularly noticeable that the verb in the sentence is placed incorrectly, for example: “The child drinks milk“. In addition, wrong articles, cases and plural forms are used. As a result, the grammar cannot be applied according to the standards.

Causes

There are various causes for dysgrammatism, such as incorrect linguistic input. However, this is what a child needs in order to learn correct grammar. In this case, the learning process is impeded. Another possibility for the language development disorder is a too low capacity of the working memory. In this case, it is not able to encode what is heard and compare it with the information already present, so that information is lost and cannot be retrieved at the appropriate moment because it has not been stored in the long-term memory. Furthermore, the speech disorder may be due to early childhood brain damage such as an accident, to a developmental mental disorder. It can also be caused by a hearing impairment, a lack of concentration, mental illness, contact disorders or a lack of language support. Often, in the case of dysgrammatism, several factors interact to lead to the language development disorder.

Symptoms, complaints and signs

The child is not able to overcome the errors independently when dysgrammatism is present. Grammar basically includes two different areas: syntax and morphology. While syntax refers to the structure of the sentence, that is, the word order, morphology describes how words change depending on what functions they have in the sentence. In dysgrammatism, syntax and morphology are very recognizably different from the corresponding grammar of children of the same age. If dysgrammatism is diagnosed, the doctor prescribes speech therapy. The parents then choose a speech therapist themselves. Speech therapy is provided by a speech and language therapist, but respiratory, voice and speech teachers or speech therapists are also available. Picture stories and books are used to encourage the child to tell stories, and the extent of grammatical abnormalities is used to determine whether a speech disorder requiring treatment is present. If this is the case, the grammatical morphemes must be learned, which these children find very difficult. It takes them a very long time to understand and internalize these rules.

Diagnosis

The pediatrician examines the child at the latest at U9 to determine whether there is age-appropriate language development. However, parents or educators usually notice earlier that a child has more difficulty arranging words correctly and forming sentences correctly compared to children of the same age. In this case, parents should immediately contact the pediatrician. Diagnostics include test procedures to check vocabulary development and grammatical rule formation. The aim of this is to analyze spontaneous speech. In young children, this is readily recorded during observation at play. At school age, written formulation skills are usually assessed in addition to speech. If dysgrammatism is not treated in time or inadequately, the language development disorder will still have an effect even at school age. Therefore, if there is any suspicion, going to the doctor is very important. Through early speech therapy, a child’s language deficits can usually be made up for or even completely eliminated within a short period of time. However, if speech therapy treatment is not provided, faulty speech patterns can become entrenched, so that they can continue to have an effect in school or into adolescence or adulthood.

Complications

Dysgrammatism describes the problem of people not being able to produce grammatically correct sentences.Grammatically incorrect forms are used, sentences and sentence structures are sometimes incomplete, the context and flow of speech is lost. Therefore, if dysgrammatism is suspected, a specialist should be consulted if the problems cannot be clarified at school. Dysgrammatism should be clearly distinguished from agrammatism. Agrammatism is a phenomenon that occurs in immigrants who do not know the native language and can only learn it to a certain point. It comes to overlaps with the mother tongue. This does not require medical treatment and can be improved by effective German language teaching. Dysgrammatism, on the other hand, occurs primarily in natives who, due to developmental deficits or brain diseases and injuries, do not fully master grammar or partially unlearn it. Unlike agrammatism, therefore, in dysgrammatism medical advice should be sought to manage the language disorder, whether through logopedic training, targeted language training by professionals such as clinical linguists, or NLP techniques. If speech therapy is not provided, dysgrammatism becomes entrenched, which can lead to social and occupational stigma. Affected individuals suffer from a lack of self-esteem and inferiority complexes. Teachers, physicians and family members as well as the social environment should take initial indications seriously and initiate speech therapy countermeasures.

When should you see a doctor?

If there are noticeable problems forming grammatically correct sentences, the child should be taken to the doctor. The medical professional can determine whether dysgrammatism is actually present and then refer the parents or guardians to the appropriate specialized clinic. Since treatment is more likely to succeed the sooner it occurs, the pediatrician should be consulted at the first sign of a problem. Parents who notice that their child is forming unusual sentences or omitting whole words should have this clarified quickly. Dysgrammatism occurs particularly frequently in connection with a lack of language support, contact disorders or poor concentration. Children who have been adopted from a problem family or from abroad, for example, must therefore receive speech therapy as early as possible. If the speech disorder is due to a mental illness or brain damage in early childhood, this must also be clarified quickly. In most cases, the problems can at least be greatly reduced through comprehensive care and regular training. Suitable contacts, in addition to the pediatrician, are clinical linguists or specialized clinics where logopedic training is offered.

Treatment and therapy

Dysgrammatism can be treated, for example, with rhythmic-musical exercises to improve the child’s sense of speech and speech rhythmicity. A part of the therapy is also the development of grammatical skills, for example, through language games, because this contributes to motivation in the child. In addition, the treatment of dysgrammatism aims to promote perceptual skills at the tactile, auditory and visual levels. Another logopedic approach is modeling. Here, the goal is to expand semantic expressive ability. A child who knows about his or her language deficits often develops a general reluctance to communicate. Often the numerous conversations already contribute to the improvement. In this way, the child’s self-esteem can also be strengthened as part of the therapy. With increased self-confidence, grammatical competence and thus dysgrammatism usually improve automatically.

Outlook and prognosis

In most cases, dysgrammatism does not cure itself, so the condition must always be treated by a doctor. If the disease is not treated, it can lead to serious complications in adulthood and also in childhood development, so that it is significantly limited. Patients are unable to produce normal sentence structure and therefore suffer from discomfort in speech and communication. Development is delayed, and the speech difficulties can also lead to bullying or teasing at a young age. The treatment of dysgrammatism always depends on the exact manifestation of the complaints and aims at alleviation and speech therapy.This can alleviate most of the complaints, so that the affected person can also participate in an undisturbed development. Likewise, the psychological complaints are also solved and the self-confidence of the affected person is strengthened. The exact outcome of the treatment cannot be predicted, but the chances of a complete cure increase if it starts early. The patient’s life expectancy is not reduced by dysgrammatism.

Prevention

There are several ways to prevent dysgrammatism in a child, such as by not neglecting to communicate with the child. In addition, attention should be paid to the child’s age-appropriate development in order to correct any existing disorders in language development at an early stage and prevent dysgrammatism. Overtaxing the child can also lead to this disorder and should therefore be avoided at all costs. In addition, sufficient sleep should be ensured, because concentration plays a particularly important role for correct sentence structure. A child who is regularly unslept is at a higher risk of developing dysgrammatism.

Follow-up

Traditional treatment for dysgrammatism involves speech therapy. Often, there is a comprehensive language developmental delay, of which dysgrammatism is a prominent part. Some clinics specialize in the treatment and follow-up of such speech disorders. Premature infants pose a particular problem in the treatment of such disorders. The earlier the affected children are treated for their grammar acquisition disorders, the more receptive they are to therapy. Since other language development disorders are usually present as well, follow-up care is useful. Because of the other children, who often react negatively to such disorders, psychotherapeutic care may be useful. Otherwise, speech therapy is responsible. If the present deficits on the level of syntax-morphology are not treated early, it will be difficult for the children to keep up with others. However, since the disorders are usually noticed early, the chances for treatment and follow-up are good. Sentence structure disorders or dysgrammatism belong to the classic fields of treatment in speech therapy. In individual cases, the follow-up phase can take a very long time. This is especially the case if further speech development disorders or a learning disorder are present. If necessary, the child can be helped by being enrolled in a special school. There, affected children can be cared for more intensively.

What you can do yourself

Basically, the earlier the disorder is treated, the better the missing skills in sentence formation can be picked up. Since no neurological cause of the disorder has yet been found, treatment by medication is not indicated. Instead, the developmental delay in sentence formation is compensated by therapies, in which a constructive relationship with the child should be established through a benevolent and trust-promoting basic atmosphere of the therapist. The therapy is usually supervised by a speech therapist, but can also be organized with the help of respiratory, voice and speech teachers as well as speech therapy pedagogues. For example, the child is shown interesting picture stories, which he should be encouraged to actively repeat. Music as a stimulus has also proven to be helpful in the care of dysgrammatic children, since a melody is specifically created during the music, in which the child enjoys developing his or her own “speech melody”. It is important in therapy that all measures to get the child to speak actively and to form sentences better are done in a playful way and bring joy to the child. Only in this way can the child, whose grammatical weaknesses correspond to a general unwillingness to use language, learn to take pleasure in language and thus in social communication. In cases of severe social withdrawal, the intervention of child psychologists can also be helpful, because here the problem is of a fundamental nature.