Dysarthria is defined by abnormalities in strength, speed, range, steadiness, tone, or accuracy of movements required for the five subsystems of speech (breathing, phonation, resonation, articulation, and prosody).
Unlike dysphagia voice disorders, or multiple sclerosis swallowing disorders that affect swallowing abilities, these abnormalities in oral motor skills are due to sensory-motor problems that can include weakness or paralysis, in coordination, involuntary movements, or excessive, reduced, or variable muscle tone.
There are seven different classifications of dysarthria. Each type will differently affect oral motor skills and present with different symptoms and different sites of lesions. The seven types of dysarthria are flaccid, spastic, mixed, unilateral upper motor neuron, ataxic, hypokinetic, and hyperkinetic.
There are many different etiologies that can cause cognitive communication disorders like dysarthria, stuttering motor speech disorders, and/or other motor speech disorders. These include traumatic brain injury, infections, toxic/metabolic diseases, trauma, vascular diseases, congenital diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases. Depending upon where the damage or site of the lesion impacts the type of motor speech disorder and/or dysarthria that presents.
There are two speech language pathology approaches to treating dysarthria and motor speech disorders: compensatory and restorative. Speech language pathologists will use compensatory strategies that provide the patient with different treatment strategies and tools to utilize to increase their speech production. Compensatory strategies can also include utilizing AAC devices. Restorative approaches focus on improving speech and language abilities, including the speaker’s intelligibility, loudness, pace, naturalness of speech, and efficiency.
If you suspect you or a loved one may have dysarthria or a motor speech disorder, it is best to make an appointment with a speech language pathologist! The good news is that if dysarthria or a motor speech disorder is present, the speech therapists at Silver Linings Neurodevelopment can create customized treatment plans to help improve each patient’s unique challenges and ease their symptoms.