Language Symptoms and Syndrome of X Fragile: case study

Abstract

The present research approaches a case study of a boy with language symptoms and medical diagnosis of Fragile X Syndrome following on the Speech-Language therapeutic process from the age of four up to six years old, with the purpose of identifying, in a more specific way, how the language structure laws emerge in the child’s speech. The elected focus aims to privilege a view on the speaker entrance or refusal on the relative autonomy of language, moving away from the notion of lineal causality of the genetic syndrome and the language symptoms. Were elected, for analysis, clinical episodes that were considered enigmatic extracted from the therapeutic Speech-Language sessions. Based on the SpeechLanguage Therapy Clinics that is supported on the dialogy, or, in the relationship between the speaker and the Other, clinical practice was approached based on subjectivity and inter-subjectivity. The analyses allowed to outline the child’s trajectory in the singular interlacement of his speech to the language way of functioning, pointing out the language therapist’s interpretations and scansions, which are cuts marked by speech variations of intonation, rhythm and melody. It was concluded that interpretative actions resting on the verbal stereotype and echolalia as well as on the therapist’s silence can generate changes in the child’s position, identifying in this therapeutic approach, promising ways to the therapeutic instance of Speech-Language Clinics that deals with speaker with the so-called pathological speech.