Neurolinguistica e neuropsicologia dei disturbi specifici del linguaggio nel bambino: Proposta di un esame del linguaggio

Developmental language disorders in children are disorders in language acquisition and manifest themselves with a delay in the development of language skills. They may affect linguistic levels and are therefore to be distinguished from acquired language pathologies. The causes underlying specific language disorders in children are still unknown but many factors have been described that are generally either associated with them (male gender and left or mixed manual preference, motor clumsiness, epilepsy and/or febrile convulsion episodes) or provide a prognostic clue (low non-verbal IQ, linguistic deficits persisting after five years of age, anomias and semantic- pragmatic disorders). An indication of developmental language disorders is also given by correlated deficits such as reduced verbal short-term memory skills and the presence - at clinical level - of paroxistic anomalies during sleep. Given the complex clinical picture, in order to rule out the presence of other deficits and make a correct diagnosis, children with suspected developmental language disorders receive a neurologic and neuropsychiatric assessment first and subsequently undergo a neuropsychological and neurolinguistic investigation. The neuropsychological assessment aims at establishing their intellectual level and verifying whether there are cognitive deficits other than linguistic disabilities. The neurolinguistic assessment is structured in two fundamental stages: 1. the analysis of a sample of spontaneous speech; 2. the administration of standardized linguistic tests evaluating the main language functions and linguistic levels. The validity of a language assessment for children with developmental language disorders is not confined to diagnosis but allows clinicians to document any development in the rehabilitative treatment.