Dysphasia

Dysphasia is a specific developmental speech and language disorder that results in the failure of normal receptive and/or expressive language acquisition and is not the result of intellectual disability, sensory deficit, or autistic communication and relationship disorder. Severity, attested by calibrated scales, and endurance over the years, well beyond the age of six, despite adequate stimulation and appropriate speech therapy, classically differentiate dysphasia from the more common « simple » language delay. Some children have primarily an oral language comprehension disorder, or receptive disorder related to language sounds, words, sentence structure or language meaning.

Although dysphasia is a specific disorder of oral language development, other disorders are often associated to varying degrees:

• behavioral problems, related to comprehension and expression difficulties, which tend to regress with the child’s care;

• attention deficit, with or without hyperactivity;

• spatial representation disorders;

• difficulties in fine motor skills, in graphics and/or difficulties in taking visual cues or automating certain gestures (practical difficulties).