Traugott, Natalia Nikolaevna

NN Traugott was born in 1904. Received two higher educations - medical and pedagogical. She was a student of academician I. P. Pavlov. Under his leadership, she defended her thesis, a review of which was written by V. M. Bekhterev .

In 1927 he began working in the physiological laboratory under the direction of A. G. Ivanov-Smolensky . In the 1930s, N. N. Traugott worked in a laboratory at a psychiatric clinic organized on the initiative of I. P. Pavlov and led by A. G. Ivanov-Smolensky. In the same period, she runs a school for children with alalia at the Orthophonic Institute.

In the early days of the war, a volunteer went to the front. Captain of the Medical Service, 55th Army (55 A) . Awards: the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad ", the Order of the Red Star , the Order of the Patriotic War of 1 degree , the medal "For the Victory over Germany" , the medal "For the victory over Japan . " ^[one]

In 1956, N. N. Traugott headed the Laboratory of Pathology of Higher Nervous Activity of the Institute of Evolutionary Physiology. I.M. Sechenov. In 1964, N. N. Traugott defended his thesis for the degree of Doctor of Medical Sciences on the topic: “On sensory aphasia and alalia ”. Natalya Nikolaevna Traugott died in 1994. She was buried at the Serafimov cemetery .

Natalya Nikolaevna Traugott conducted large-scale studies in the field of studying the physiology of higher nervous activity of people with speech disorders, as well as studying the physiology of higher nervous activity of people with psychopathological syndromes ( stupor , depression , etc.).

Study of sensory aphasia

She first studies the work of the auditory analyzer in children's hearing loss , alalia and aphasia . Using the conditioned reflex technique, she manages to identify the peculiar inferiority of the auditory function in children with sensory alalia, that is, in children who have no speech in the presence of hearing.

She found that in sensory alalia, the defect of the auditory function is manifested in the inconstancy of the orienting response to sound signals, in the difficult formation of conditional reactions to sounds, their fragility, as well as in the violation of differentiation of sound signals, especially complex ones. These features explain the difficulties of qualifying hearing (the volume of losses), and they also explain the difficulties of forming phonetic hearing and speech development.

Research Traugott showed that the specificity of hearing impairment in sensory alalia and childhood sensory aphasia is a partial defect of higher nervous activity.

Back in the 1930s, Traugott succeeds in differentiating sensory alalia from hearing loss in terms of the specificity of impaired auditory function.

She found that in sensory aphasia in adults as well as in sensory alalia, there are violations of not only speech, but also non-speech hearing in the form of switching acupathy. The phenomenon of closure acupathy as a general mechanism of impairment of nonverbal and speech hearing was the first time in the national and world physiology that NN Traugott was identified and described.

In the works of N. N. Traugott and her staff, it was found that when the cortical end of any analyzer is affected (auditory, visual, motor) and local brain lesions, the switching function of the cortex is selectively affected. These ideas allow NN Traugott to answer the question being discussed whether speech and non-speech functions can be isolated in isolation with focal cortical lesions. In her opinion, there can be no gap between the speech and non-speech levels; the inferiority of the sound analyzer in sensory aphasia is detected both in relation to speech and non-speech sounds. The disorder of speech and nonverbal hearing have a parallel course in case of a violation, and in the restoration of speech, and are due to a single factor - the inadequacy of the cortical part of this analyzer. In the works of N. N. Traugott and her employees , the peculiarity of interanalyzer relations was revealed . In particular, with the defeat of the parietal lobes, it was found that, regardless of the modality of the stimuli, the assessment of temporal and spatial relationships is disturbed.

Studies of psychopathological syndromes

A significant contribution to the study of higher nervous activity was made by the studies of Natalia Nikolaevna Traugott on psychopathological syndromes.

She established the general laws of oppression and restoration of higher nervous activity in diffuse brain lesions.

It was shown that when inhibition of cortical activity, both diffuse and local, the closure ability is violated first of all, that is, the new experience suffers, or the learning process.

With diffuse, this applies to any activity; with local, that analyzer that is affected. It was also shown that a wide variety of skills are oppressed and restored in a uniform sequence: the most vulnerable are late acquired, less reinforced and more complex in structure.

And also that the emotional factor is of great importance in relation to the acquisition of new experience and the preservation of the old. Everything emotionally significant during life or at the moment is more durable and is restored earlier.

NN Traugott's research turned out to be significant for the development of national neurophysiology and speech therapy.

• N. Traugott. On sensory aphasia and alalia: Dis: ... Dr. med. - L., 1964.
• Traugott N.N., Kaidanova S.I. Hearing impairment in sensory alalia and aphasia. - M., 1975
• N. Traugott. On disturbances in the interaction of signaling systems in certain acutely occurring pathological states of the brain. - M. —L .: AN USSR, 1957.
• Traugott N.N. How to help children who speak poorly. —SPb., 1994.

• G. Sumchenko, M. Khrakovskaya, N. N. N. Traugott (on the 85th anniversary of birth) // Defectology. - 1990. - № 1. - p. 90.