What is Dysarthria?

The level of awareness of disabilities in Malaysia is low compared to developed countries.

The awareness of what cerebral palsy is even lower, even though it affects 1 in 400 births (in US) if I remember the stats correctly. Only 1 person (excluding medical professionals & parents of a CP kid) I spoke to has heard of the term CP.

If you mention the term 'dysarthria', you'd probably get the same reaction from the listener as if you had mentioned the name of a new species of plant from the deepest Amazon forest!

So, I'll reproduce some brief information on dysarthria that I found on the web, in terminology that's easy to understand.

Perhaps this might raise the awareness of dysarthria a tad bit.

Dysarthria can have many causes and characteristics.

Children with dysarthria have some type of underlying neurologic impairment, such as cerebral palsy, central nervous system hypotonia, traumatic brain injury, or other neuromuscular disorders. In my son's case, it is cerebral palsy. His CP is the "acquired" type of CP. He was not born with CP.

Children with the various types of dysarthria have a neuromuscular impairment. That is, the speech mechanism (larynx, lips, tongue, palate and jaw) may be paralysed, weak or poorly co-ordinated. His is not paralysed, thank goodness. It is weak but improving. The co-ordination is also improving.

Dysarthrias can affect ALL motor speech processes: breathing, producing sounds in the larynx, articulation, resonance, and the 'prosody' or rhythm of speech.

Children with dysarthria will have some evidence of neuromuscular difficulties that go beyond speech and language development. Feeding and swallowing will be impaired; drooling is often present. The neurosuit therapy & CST has helped reduce his drooling. Feeding and swallowing has greatly improved over the last 18 months.

Parts of the above description of dysarthria was reproduced from:
Bowen, C. (1998). Children's speech sound disorders: Questions and answers. Retrieved from http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/phonol-and-artic.htm on 15 Oct 2009.