Diversities in the Speech and Language Skills Among Children with Developmental Gerstmann’s Syndrome-A Subgroup of Learning Disability

Abstract

The present study reveals the details of five children with Developmental Gerstmann’s syndrome (DGS), a subgroup of Learning disability . There were diversities noticed in terms of their speech and language characteristics. A multidisciplinary team consisting of a Neurologist, a Speech Language Pathologist and a Psychologist at the Institute for Cognitive and Communicative Neuro Sciences (ICCONS) assessed the children. A dissociation of oral language ability, writing ability and reading ability was noticed among these children. One child showed normal speech and language milestones with normal or better reading ability, but the child had dysgraphia equal in degree to dyscalculia. Three other children presented with a history of developmental dysphasia. Not all children with DGS fail to learn to read at appropriate time. Associated dyslexia was found in 3/5 patients. Order errors and their script characterized spelling by malorientation of individual letters. All the 5 children described are bilinguals with Malayalam as mother tongue and English as second language. These children made similar errors in both languages. Children classified as DGS are not homogenous and hence will require different remedial strategies. Early identification and intervention of these children is crucial. This is more important in the scenario of Indian culture and education where the students are forced to be biliterate , which further increases the constraints.