Glossomania (speech disorder): causes, symptoms and treatment
A speech disorder that affects people with certain neurological problems.
The ability to communicate through spoken language, or commonly known as speech, is the physical medium through which most human beings communicate.
Speech is the aural execution of language and the one of the ways in which the participants in it perceive each other's intentions and content.
But sometimes this ability is truncated due to neurological problems, or certain psychopathological disturbances among others. In these cases, alterations in verbal communication appear, such as glossomania, in which the person is able to elaborate a verbal speech but without any communicative value..
- Recommended article: "The 15 most common neurological disorders".
What does glossomania consist of?
If we dissect the word glossomania according to its etymological roots, we see that it is made up of two Greek roots: glossa whose current translation would be tongue, and the suffix mania which is interpreted as to have obsession, obsessive impulse or pathological habit and passionate fondness.
From these roots it can already be intuited that its meaning is going to be related to an altered or distorted oral language production.
In the field of psychology and psychiatry, glossomania refers to the elaboration of language in such a way that the linguistic units, such as lexemes, phonemes, morphemes and sentences, are unconsciously selected by the subject and combined on the basis of phonological or semantic coincidences, and not according to a coherent order of meaning.
This type of elaborations are typical of certain psychopathological conditions.The main causes of glossomania are neurological problems, trance states or neurological problems produced by different causes such as tumors or intoxications.
Glossomania vs glossolalia
Although both coincide in the fact of being alterations in the production of language linked to psychiatric disorders, unlike glossomania, glossolalia consists of the fluid vocalization of an intelligible language, composed of words that the patient invents and rhythmic and repetitive sequences more typical of infantile speech; creating a speech in which practically everything is neologisms.
As a curious fact, in some religious beliefs this alteration is known as "gift of tongues"; considering the speeches as a language.considering the speech as a divine language unknown to the speaker, and that places the person who executes it as chosen by the divinity or divinities.
Speech in mental illness
A characteristic feature of some mental illnesses is that people are not able to maintain a conversation or make any kind of speech with apparently logical connections between words and expressions; it is very difficult for the patient to communicate, and for the listener to understand the ideas, facts and intentions that he/she is trying to communicate.
Generally, incoherent speech is not considered to be a language problem, but rather a problem of another dimension.. The first impression that these alterations provide is that of being a communication problem, that is to say pragmatic; initially observing a difficulty in interacting with others and with the environment.
In order for a person to be able to communicate orally or to make any kind of speech, it is necessary that all cognitive skills are well grounded, since speech is produced and understood at a level of language processing that demands it.
Likewise, the preconditions of attention, memory, knowledge of the context and of the interlocutors are absolutely necessary for a successful oral correspondence. If all these conditions are not met, language becomes poor and limited, or an uncontrolled and incoherent source of words. This last alteration is what occurs in glossomania.
In any case, glossomania itself is not a psychiatric disorder, but rather a symptom of disorders such as neurosis and schizophrenia; it is the result of an alteration in the organization of thought. That is to say, an adulteration of the selection, arrangement and expression of what the person wants to communicate.
Glossomania in schizophasia
Glossomanic schizophasia is an extremely surprising and very rare disorder, being rather typical of patients with a high cultural level.
Schizophrenic glossomania
In this type of schizophrenia the speech can become abundant and fluent, which requires the attention and participation of the viewer to become understandable.
If attention is paid to the patient's speech, changes at the word level are noticed, but, in addition, there are also alterations at the level of the words, there are also alterations at the sentence level. In these people the following can be observed.
Incomprehensible neologisms
These are neologisms that the person creates and that are usually not easily understood. They are often recently pronounced words and vary in both phonetic and semantic content. In addition, they may include formations from opposite words, such as "it's white-black" instead of "it's gray".
This patient-created language may even consist of entire sentences. Although few patients manage to execute such an ability, which some experts call "hyperphasia".
Some experts theorize that these intellectually gifted people, faced with the difficulties of understanding and before the speech of other people incomprehensible from their point of view, concentrate only on their own speech, creating the above-mentioned glossolalia.
Deviations in lexical compositions
In these deviations the patient elaborates compositions of two words that normally do not form a compound. Such as "I need a pen-ink".
Deviations in morphemic compositions
In this case the semantic potential of the sentences is relatively comprehensible. For example: "I've been swotting all day", instead of "I've been reading all day".
(Updated at Apr 15 / 2024)