To cure a problem, you have to get to the heart of it and know it well. This holds true for every disease or symptom in medical history. Keeping with this line of thought, you have these diagnostic tests and examinations. For communication disorders, it cannot be any different, can it? You can only arrange for speech therapy when you know what kind of speech disorder is posing problems for you or someone close to you.
There can be a varying number of speech disorders. Some of them are purely physiological. For example, a cleft chin or palate can restrict speech to considerable extent. The therapy required for this kind of problem cannot be the same for a psychological issue, like low self-confidence, that causes stammering. You need to know about the different types of speech disorders simply to arm yourself with the knowledge. It will help you immensely in finding the correct solution to the problem.
Let us start with aparaxia of speech. This is caused by illnesses that are progressive in nature. As the illness becomes more acute, the speech becomes even more labored. Words become distorted and are progressively more difficult to pronounce. In this kind of speech disorder, individual words become harder to speak than common phrases which may be spoken spontaneously.
A similar kind of disease related speech problem is called dysarthria. Neurological diseases like Parkinson’s or ALS, even strokes, weaken the ability to speak. Sometimes, especially in the case of strokes, the ability to speak may stop completely. It requires months, sometimes even years of speech therapy to bring back some sort of normalcy in speech. Cerebral palsy is another condition which can severely hamper speech.
Dysprosody is another communication disorders caused by a disease. This is a very rare problem. In this case, brain tumors or other brain vascular accidents dent the speaking ability. There are severe alterations in the utterance of words, their pronunciation and the intensity of those utterances. There are variations in rhythms, intonations and cadences of the spoken words.
You require the help of professional speech therapists to tackle these problems. Contact our desk at Speech Plus. We have a wide array of speech therapists and specialists. All of them are proficient in this domain with years of experience. To tackle speech disorders caused by diseases, you cannot rely on hacks! Get in touch with us at Speech Plus for professional speech therapy and guidance.