Aphasia and Alalia from the Perspective of Natal’ya N. Traugott’s Studies on Higher Cognitive Processes

Abstract

The paper describes one of the central areas of research of Professor Natal’ya N. Traugott, a famous Russian neurophysiologist. In particular, Prof. Traugott identified the general neurophysiological mechanisms responsible for speech disorders in children with alalia and in adults with aphasia caused by focal brain lesions. Physiological experiments showed that both sensory alalia in children and sensory aphasia in adults are associated with the deficiency of auditory analyzer; such deficiency leads to disorders in the formation of conditional reactions to sounds and sound complexes. Moreover, a general development pattern was identified in the ontogeny of interaction of signal systems and in the degradation of such interaction caused by the lesions of particular analyzers. This finding of Prof. Traugott is very important in both theory of cerebral speech mechanisms and speech therapy practices aimed at speech system development and rehabilitation following cerebral dysfunctions.