Objectives For this Blog:

- To understand a working definition of what Dysarthria is, and how neurological injury affects speech.

- To examine how Dysarthria is different from other speech disorders such as Apraxia. Conversely, one will also be able to see how Friedreich's Apraxia Dysarthria does not have well developed research in how intelligibility and phonetics are affected in this disease.

- To give people a view at how Dysarthria is a neurological issue that affects more than just people in the USA, but instead, also people in other parts of the world.

Dysarthria Talks

This is a woman who has Dysarthria. She attempts to explain how Dysarthria results from neurological damage, and not from the muscle tension she has. She has a hard time speaking, and this video really touches you once you see how people struggle with this speech disorder.


One of the biggest symptoms of Dysarthria is the difference in the range of voice due to muscle tension and neurological damage to parts to central nervous system. Steven Bloch and Ray Wilkinson have studied the brain and its the pathological effects in relation to Dysarthria. In October 2009, they decided to explore how daily speech deviates from normative range. Their first aim was to find out how Dysarthria turn-to-talk could be problematic in daily conversation for patients with Dysarthria. Most patients with this disease are note able to get out many of their thoughts through speech and their words often come out as babble or not at all. Bloch Wilkinson hope to examine the daily difficulties that patients go through with phonetic hardships. They used video of natural conversation of people with Dysarthria over a period of three month intervals. After the two scientists gathered all of the evidence from the study, they realized that not only do Dysarthria patients have strong problems with phonetics and intelligibility, but also have problems understanding what the actually problem is when doing talk turn.
In summation, Dysathria patients have a great difficulty speaking phonetics and getting talk turn with normal and daily conversation. After careful examination, scientists are still running tests and believe that there is great possibility of clinical assessment and intervention.

Steven Bloch
Ray Wilkinson
Research Department of Language and Communication, University College London, London, UK
School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders; Sep/Oct2009, Vol. 44 Issue 5, p769-783, 15p, 4 Charts

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Friedreich's Ataxia Dysarthria

Friedreich's Ataxia is a hereditary disorder of the nervous system. Dysarthria has been proven to be a symptom of Freidreich's Ataxia. While this brain degenerative disease has been diagnosed since the time of the Civil War, many clinicians studying the development of this disease without empirical evidence of therapuetic treatments have led them to more intense study.
Nikolaus Friedriech was a German neurologist who found pathological correlations between ataxia and brain tumors. He realized in 1863 what has now become "Friedreich's Ataxia", which he identified in 1863 as a degenerative disease with sclerosis of the spinal cord which affects a person's speech, balance and coordination.
This was a study that tried to understand the severity of intelligibility and its deficit in Freidreich's Ataxia Dysarthria. It hopes to document a phonetic profile that will provide statistics of the intelligibility deficit. In addition, they wanted to use the data to estimate what the motor control mechanisms and neurological substances that enzymes act on in the Friedreich's ataxia dysarthria.
They took eleven males with this brain disease. they used a "single-world multiple-choice tasks that was completed by ten listeners. Results reported intelligibility severity ranging from mild to severe. Many fell into the mild category. Phonetic displayed a distinctive profile. Cerebro-cerebellar had a strong correlation with voicing contrast in mild patients.
This study concluded that Friedreich's Ataxia Dysarthria is not well developed as far as intelligibility severity relatability and phonetics are concerned. There is still a variety of treatments being used in Friedreich's Ataxia Dysarthria, in addition to much more research needed for a stronger diagnosis of this disease.

Bronagh Blaney and and Nigel Hewlett
School of Health Sciences, University of Ulster, Newtownabbey, UK
Speech and Hearing Sciences, Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh UK
(Received 14 April 2005; accepted 8 March 2006)

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Multiculturalism at its Best- The Universality of Dysarthria

I go to one of the most diverse schools in North Carolina. The multiculturalism that is represented at UNC-Greensboro is unique in its many colors, traditions, cultures, and customs. The US is also one of the biggest culturally attractive nations in the world. Nevertheless, I do not feel that culture is effectively represented in major parts of our economy, politics, and most importantly in regards to this text, medical settings and research. Many of our diagnoses and treatments are meant for the majority of people that live in the US. I believe that it is imperative if not mandatory that we examine how what we call "a disorder" affects those outside of our own culture. Luckily, I had the opportunity to examine the brief review of a study done by Hong Kong scientists out of the People's Republic of China.
In this article, studies of Cantonese-and Mandarin-Chinese speakers with dysarthria are reviewed. There were two types of people studied with two different types of diseases comorbid with dysarthria. One was Cerebral Palsy, and the other was Parkinson's Disease. Mandrin- Chinese people have a very "lexical" tone when they speak with dysarthria; this is specific to the way that many Mandrin-Chinese people speak normally thus affecting how they speak with dysarthria. This study concluded that although these disease affect Mandrin-Chinese people the same way it affects American people, there are certain differences in the phonologies of Cantonese and Madnrin. Moreover, this lucidly shows the language specificities of dysarthria. Although this article was very (very) brief, I judge that after examining it, it hold a much stronger purpose. It contributes to the multiculturalism of many disorders- not just speech. It shows us the cultural differences that obviously exist global, and that although many cultures have many diverse venaculars and customs, in a very acute sense, we are very much alike.

http://140.234.0.9:8080/EPSessionID=df1c6839b3d9dba0b9ba6bb21b52d2f/EPHost=proquest.umi.com/EPPath/pqdweb?index=10&did=2031268871&SrchMode=2&sid=1&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1278372439&clientId=15109

The Differences- Dysarthria and Apraxia

According to Dr. Andrew Morgan, chief of the section of child development at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine at Peoria, dysarthria and apraxia are usually two speech disorders that are commonly confused. While verbal apraxia deals with complications in the central nervous system processing, Dysarthria is a disorder that deals with problems in output. Many physicians usually get these two speech disorders mixed. Both are speech disorders that usually begin in children, however, children are often mislabeled with apraxia when they should actually be diagnosed with dysarthria and vice versa. Verbal apraxia is an impairment of a child's ability to plan and execute voluntary movements of speech. Within the brain, between the input of information and the output, something goes aloof, and the speech is not processed correctly, resulting in dysfunctional verbal output; regardless of meaningfulness. Children with verbal Apraxia do not have feeding or muscular dysfuction, as in dysarthria. Regardless, they do have problems with activities that exercise their brain's plan motor activities. Dysarthria is a step up from apraxia because while the brain has the ability to make motor movements in dysarthria, they are unable to carry them out in their speech. The pitch in their voice does fluctuate, but the order in which they say the words are correct; in apraxia, children often repeat sounds and gestures. Another difference that occurs is the substitution of constants (apraxia omits constants).
The early detection of Dysarthria is hearing impairment. The most effective way to control this early on is getting a hearing aid for children as early as 6 months.
I really enjoyed this article. throughout the world wide web, there was an array of information sites for dysarthria, however, there were really no articles on how this speech disorder compares or contrasts from other disorders. It also give a first hand look at how children are affected different by two similar but different speech disorders that usually get confused. Clearly, dysarthria is real, and it exists in more children than some. There should really be more research advocating for this speech disorder and the development of its treatments and regulation.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7342/is_10_30/ai_63566883/?tag=content;col1

Dysarthia: In a Child's Words

Often times, I find myself looking at my niece and wondering if she is really suppose to drool like that, or put all her food in her mouth at one time. I continuously ask myself "Is she suppose to crawl like that?" My older sister is always telling me, "stop trying to diagnose my baby!". While my niece is very healthy, there are many children born with all kinds of disorders that could range from neurological and physical, to physiological and developmental impairments. in "Dysarthria in Children", we are given a wide range of ways in which Dysarthria affects children. For starters it is important to define what Dysarthria in children is. Dysarthria in children is a motor speech disorder that affects the speech of the child. Dysarthria in children is a condition that affects how a child forms speech patterns due damage in the brain and speech muscles. Because the speech muscles are weak, they also affect the muscles of the mouth, face and respiratory system. Causes of this speech disorder in children can also result from tumor on the Nervous System and head injury.
There are 4 types of Dysarthria that occurs in children:
- Flaccid- loss of muscle tone and muscle weakness
- Spastic- excess muscle tension
- Ataxic- difficulty in rate and range of speech
- Hyperkinetic- lost of inhibitory control
The symptoms that are related to Dysarthria in Children are but not limited to:
-Slurred or slowed speech
-Excessive loud or soft speech
-Difficulty in controlling the speech volume
-Child speaks with a lot of effort and lacks breath control
-Difficulty in controlling pitch
The treatment for dysarthria in children involves specific speech therapy exercises. With these exercises, the child can hope to improve the articulation, voice, pitch, and volume.
This Article was very informative in its explanation of how Dysarthria affects children, and how they acquire this disorder. It thoroughly and effectively explains the causes, symptoms, and treatments within this speech disorder. One thing I would have like to seen more of was statistics on how many children were affected, and what was it like across the board as far as age, sex, race, culture, ect. is concerned. Moreover, this was a very educating article about Dysarthria in Children, and it really gave a me better outlook on how children are affected.




http://www.buzzle.com/articles/dysarthria-in-children.html