Patient and Family Services
Pediatric Speech Pathology
Dysarthria
Among its many amazing functions, the brain controls several
different mechanisms that are used to produce speech. When
damage occurs in a certain region of the brain, it can have
wide-ranging effects on your ability to form and say words
that can be understood by others.
What is Dysarthria?
Symptoms of Dysarthria
Causes of Dysarthria
Diagnosing Dysarthria
Treating Dysarthria
What
is Dysarthria?
Dysarthria occurs when the part of the brain that controls
speech production is damaged. When this happens, the muscles
needed
to make certain sounds may become weak or paralyzed. Someone
with dysarthria may have trouble coordinating the lips, tongue,
palate, jaw, and vocal chords. This can cause speech to be
slurred, breathy, jerky, strained, and hard to understand.
Dysarthria is sometimes confused with apraxia of speech. Unlike
apraxia, however, the speech errors that occur with dysarthria
are highly consistent from one time to the next.
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Symptoms of Dysarthria
Symptoms of dysarthria may include:
-
Speech that’s slurred,
jerky, or garbled and difficult to produce and/or understand
-
Problems
controlling pitch, loudness, and rhythm when speaking
-
Slow
speech or rapid, mumbled speech
-
Speaking softly or barely
able to whisper
-
Limited ability to move the tongue, lips,
and jaw
-
Changes in the voice quality (nasal, hoarse, or stuffy)
-
Chewing
and swallowing problems
-
Drooling or poor control of saliva
Diagnosing Dysarthria
Dysarthria can be diagnosed by a physician or a speech-language
pathologist
based on an assessment of a person’s symptoms
and possible
underlying causes. A speech-language pathologist may have
a patient perform some simple
tasks (blowing out
a candle,
biting the lower lip, and sticking out the tongue) to determine
muscle strength,
accuracy, and
motion. Other tests involve repeating words and sentences,
singing, counting and
other
activities
that enable the therapist to detect
lost vowel sounds, breathiness, and slowed or slurred
speech.
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Treating Dysarthria
Sometimes, treating the underlying cause of a patient’s
dysarthria may return speech to normal.
Depending on the severity and extent of the symptoms, a speech-language
pathologist may recommend treatment, which can include:
