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