Speech and language disorders – colloquially called language development disorders – (synonym: language impairment; ICD-10 R47.-: Speech and language disorders, not elsewhere classified) may be congenital or acquired and may be caused by a variety of conditions.
Speech disorders refer to impaired articulation of speech. Speech fluency disorders can be distinguished from speech motor disorders.
Speech fluency disorders include:
- Logophobia – refers to the speech anxiety of the speech impaired.
- Mutism (F94.0) – muteness with the speech organ intact; especially in depression, dementia, stupor (drive disorder; condition with complete loss of activity in an otherwise awake state of consciousness)
- Polter (F98.6) – overhasty and slurred speech.
- Stuttering (F98.5)
Speech motor disorders include:
- Dysarthria (R47.1) – acquired speech disorder caused by a speech motor dysfunction; speech becomes slurred and “washed out”; dysarthrias are among the most common neurogenic communication disorders
- Dysglossia – disorder of speech caused by abnormalities of the tongue, palate, etc.
- Dyslalia (stammering)
Speech disorders refer to the disorder of the formation of speech. One can distinguish the following forms of speech disorders:
- Acoustic agnosia – here there is a disorder of recognition of acoustics despite intact perception.
- Alalia – articulate speech formation is not possible.
- Aphasia (G31.0) – any acquired disorder of language after completion of language acquisition caused by focal damage in the cerebrum; circa 80% of aphasias are caused by cerebrovascular diseases such as apoplexy (stroke); currently circa 70. 000 stroke patients suffer from aphasiaSymptomatik: affected are phonology (sound structures; occurrence of phonematic paraphasias), morphology (word formation; incorrect or missing declension / conjugation endings), semantics (meaning), syntax (grammar / sentence formation) and pragmatics (linguistic action).
- Dysgrammatism – language disorder associated with errors in grammar.
- Dyslogia – language disorder caused by a reduction in intelligence.
- Dysphasia (speech expression disorder).
- Dysphrasia – acquired speech disorder that impresses with speech tempo and rhythm disorders.
- Auditory muteness (audimutitas; phonetic muteness) – the patient can hear, but can not articulate phonetically, i.e., can not speak
- Neurotic mutism – muteness with the speech organ intact: which is characterized by partial (the affected person speaks only to certain people) or total silence; may occur in neuroses, violent emotions, psychogenic stupor, startle paralysis, etc.
- Deaf-muteness – inability to hear and express themselves phonetically.
Speech and language disorders can be a symptom of many conditions (see under “Differential Diagnoses”).
A speech developmental delay is present when there is evidence of at least a 6-month language delay before 36 months of age. Note: A child over 3 years of age has a vocabulary of at least 500 words.
The 10th edition of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10,) classifies circumscribed developmental disorders of speech and language (UESS; F80.-) as follows:
- Articulation disorder (F80.0).
- Expressive language disorder (F80.1)
- Receptive language disorder (F80.2).
For details, see classification below.
The prevalence for developmental language disorder is 6-8% worldwide.
