Improving Dysarthria with
Intensive Therapy

Effective dysarthria treatment involves three essential steps:

• The use of Highly Qualified exercises
• A Desire to improve
• Practice on a daily basis

You can demonstrate significant speech improvements with these building blocks of successful learning.

Traditional speech therapy has always been a reliable rehabilitative process for generating overall improvements in communication disorders.

More importantly, recent studies utilizing intensive speech therapy have demonstrated substantial results in improving the symptoms of speech and language deficits.

The opportunity for you to put an effective exercise routine into practice will be discussed in more detail. However, as speech pathologists, we would like to begin by providing you with a complete understanding of dysarthria ...

What is Dysarthria?

Dysarthria is an articulation disorder caused by weakness or paralysis of the oral muscles (the muscles associated with speech).

These include: the jaw, lips, tongue, and palate (the "roof of your mouth")

What causes Dysarthria?

The cause is due to damage to the nerves directly connected to the oral muscles. Dysarthria is classified as an oral-motor deficit and is treated by qualified speech-language pathologists.

Dysarthria is often a result of disease, such as:

• Multiple Sclerosis
• Cerebral Palsy
• Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), or "Lou Gehrig's Disease"

However, it can also be acquired as the result of:

• A Cerebral Vascular Accident (stroke)
• Head Injury
• Exposure to Toxic Substances

The Art of Speaking

Speech depends on your ability to control breathing, articulation, and voicing, all at the same time. If you actually had to think about each activity before performing the act of speech, you would probably only speak a few sentences per day.

Fortunately, our body system allows us to achieve the complex task of speaking with little effort. However, when we break down each system necessary for speech it becomes clear at how talented we truly are:

Breathing: Breath is the power behind our speech. Singers and active public speakers are well aware of this fact. Our lungs supply the energy necessary to support the stream of sentences we produce.

Articulators: General articulators are the jaw, lips, tongue, and palate. These all have to move in unison to create the many different positions in our mouth necessary to produce sound combinations that provide us with "words" and "sentences."

Voice: The vocal folds (more commonly known as, "vocal cords"), also have to be put into motion to produce sound.

All Three Working Together

Now, visualize yourself saying a simple sentence, such as, "I like cereal."

To say that seemingly easy sentence you have to:

• Take in a breath, and then time its release carefully so it equally supports each word you say.
• Move your jaw, tongue, and lips quickly and accurately into several different positions to create each vowel and consonant.
• And, also open, close, and vibrate your vocal cords several times to supply sound.

All of these actions must take place at the same time and with precision each time you speak. It is an amazing feat when you realize the complexity of it.

What does this have to do with Dysarthria?

When any of these subsystems breaks down, you will encounter a disruption in your speech. Specific damage to an area of the brain responsible for oral motor strength will result in dysarthria.

Common Characteristics

Typical symptoms include:

• Oral muscle weakness
• Difficulty with oral coordination
• Speech may have a "nasal quality"
• Breath isn't supporting the voice, resulting in a "low speaking voice"
• Overall speech sounds are slurred or garbled

Types Of Dysarthria

There are four commonly identified types of dysarthria. The cause of each type is determined by what is called, the site of lesion. This refers to a specific location in the brain where damaged occurred.

Each site of lesion (area of damage) will cause specific speech deficits:

1. Ataxic Dysarthria: This is characterized by slow, erratic speech. Articulation errors may be somewhat irregular. Breathing coordination is frequently poor.

2. Flaccid Dysarthria: Speech is characterized by a nasal quality (sounding as if "speaking through your nose") and a "breathy" voice due to poor closure of the vocal cords (resulting in low volume). Consonant sounds are especially difficult to articulate.

3. Spastic Dysarthria: As with flaccid dysarthria, consonants are mostly difficult to articulate. Speech is usually slow and seemingly strenuous. There is very little, if any, raising or lowering of vocal pitch (sounding like a "monotone voice").

4. Mixed Dysarthria: This includes a variety of characteristics described in the types of dysarthria above. The specific symptoms will vary from person to person.

For more information on dysarthria, including organizations, agencies, Internet resources, reports, and research projects, please visit the National Rehabilitation Information Center (NARIC)

Psychological Effects

Patients with acquired speech disorders often experience significant and ongoing distress regarding psychosocial wellbeing and self-image.

The restrictions they face in carrying out everyday tasks such as, expressing their thoughts, talking on the telephone, and asking informative questions, often leave them feeling self-conscious in a variety of social situations.

Speech therapy not only improves a person's speech skills, but can also promote psychosocial wellbeing and reduce the likelihood of feelings of embarrassment.

Extended length and frequency of speech therapy can contribute to a better quality of life.

How can you help a loved one with Dysarthria?

• Give the person extended time to talk. Do your best to be patient.
• If you can't understand their speech, encourage other means of communicating such as, writing the message, pointing to objects or pictures, or by making gestures.
• Always look at the person’s lips and face, to get additional visual information.
• Remind the person to speak slowly and exaggerate each sound.


• If unsure of what the person said, you can repeat the information back to them to confirm the message.
• Be respectful. Remember that the person is an adult with a speech disorder.
• Hold conversations in a place with no distractions.
• Always present a positive attitude.

Both, dysarthria and verbal apraxia are considered oral motor impairments. Occasionally, it can become confusing trying to identify one from the other. However, each disorder has specific characteristics.

Here are the common differences between the two:

• Dysarthria represents poor oral muscle movement (muscle weakness)

  Verbal apraxia represents the inability to plan the movement of your oral muscles (muscle strength is still present)

• With dysarthria, poor speech patterns are consistent and predictable (you will hear the same errors almost all of the time)

  With verbal apraxia, speech errors are irregular and will vary each time the person speaks

• Dysarthria can affect breath support, use of the vocal cords, raising and lowering of vocal pitch, articulation, and the rate (speed) at which you speak

  Verbal apraxia is primarily an articulation disorder. The other speech related systems frequently remain intact

• Dysarthric speech is characterized by sound distortions (slurred speech)

  Verbal apraxic speech is characterized by consonant substitutions (saying "puck" instead of "buck"), and hesitations (resembling a "stutterer")

Yes. Clinical evidence indicates that oral motor therapy and speech therapy are effective treatments.

However, intense therapy (daily practice) can make a significant difference in your speech skills.

Improving the symptoms of dysarthria will help you gain better speech clarity, better oral motor control, and ultimately improve your overall wellbeing.

If needed, a speech-language pathologist can also suggest other means of communication in order to supplement speech, such as a communication board or a computerized communication device.

In the most severe cases these communication aids are necessary in order to avoid isolation and to preserve the quality of life.

Oral-Motor Therapy

One effective therapy method for treating dysarthria is known as Oral-Motor Therapy.

A speech pathologist will use speech musculature exercises (oral motor therapy) to improve the strength, range of motion, coordination, and speed of tongue, lip, jaw, and vocal muscles.

Improvement is often achieved following a series of exercises ranging from "easy" to "very challenging." For the best possible results the appropriate exercises should be practiced everyday.

Oral Motor Therapy includes exercises for:

• Breath control
• Articulation
• Building strength, endurance, and coordination of the oral muscles

Daily practice of oral-motor exercises can improve oral muscle control as well as increase the accuracy of your speech.

Check our oral-motor exercise page for a list of effective exercises you can practice at home.

Speech Therapy

Professional speech therapy is also used to treat dysarthria. Speech therapy focuses on improving speech intelligibility (how well your speech can be understood by others).

This is accomplished through presenting effective exercises that focus on speech production. Exercises range from accurately producing simple vowel and consonant sounds to achieving clear dialogue during conversations.

Both, oral-motor therapy and speech therapy will provide you with the exercises needed to establish improvement and progress in your speech intelligibility.

It is important to note, however, that significant improvements require a patient's effort. Oral motor therapy and speech therapy require practice.

In fact, professional instruction and daily practice are necessary. This is an acknowledged principle in the field of speech-language pathology.

An Effective Exercise Routine: Get the Results you Want!

As speech pathologists, not only do we want to be your source of valuable information on how to improve your speech skills, but we also want to provide you with quality solutions.

Since daily practice is necessary for significant improvement an affordable source of professional therapy will be an invaluable benefit:

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For more information on how these videos work and to view a sample clip of the exercise routines, please follow the link below:

Improve Dysarthria with Speech and Oral-Motor Videos