The role of functional integrations in the acquisition and disintegration of speech skills

Abstract

Introduction. This article presents the author’s ideas about the characteristics of fluent spoken speech in the processes of its acquisition in children and disintegration in adults, based on many years of clinical experience in speech pathology.
Materials and Methods. The study employed various methods for examining the patterns of functional transformations necessary for children to acquire speech skills, as well as the features of speech disintegration in adult patients with aphasia. This study substantiates the role of speech skills in mastering fluent utterances characterized by a high degree of automation and, consequently, spontaneity. The article characterizes speech skills as integrative functional unities and describes the algorithm of their practical implementation in fluent spoken speech of children.
Results. (1) Trends were identified of structural transformations and localization changes in the representation of speech skills in the brain. (2) A tendency was revealed whereby speech skills are transformed: a) towards minimizing the territories they occupy; and b) towards reducing the energy costs of producing consolidated utterances. (3) Fundamental differences were found in the acquisition and use of speech skills in different types of speech: repetitive (at the level of speech auditory gnosis and articulatory praxis) and spontaneous (at the language level).
Conclusions. The findings have an important innovative substantiation in the light of modern data in the field of neurovisualization of conduction systems and their myelination processes. It is emphasized that they constitute the brain mechanisms of speech formation and play a key role in classifying speech development disorders as different forms of proper linguistic alalia. Aphasia is recognized to be the result of the disintegration of speech skills and their return to non-verbal and verbal components. It is argued that the acquisition and disintegration of speech skills (aphasia) are complementary but multidirectional processes, reflecting general natural patterns of convergence and divergence. This perspective on the role of functional integrations in fluent spoken language acquisition opens new avenues of specialized intervention within remedial and restorative education.