Motor Speech Disorders

What Are Motor Speech Disorders?

Motor speech disorders affect speech and communication. Since they are of different types and severities, an assessment and a tailored treatment by a Speech Therapist are essential for maintaining communication.
Motor speech disorders are a class of disorders where there is weakness or incoordination of the muscles that are required for speech due to neurological damage. The signals sent by the brain are not transmitted adequately or appropriately to the muscles.

Motor Speech Disorders are incoordination of the muscles that are required for speech due to neurological damage.

Some common causes Of Motor Speech Disorders:

• Stroke
• Brain tumors
• Brain injury due to accident or surgical trauma
• Side effects of certain medications used for sedation or for treating seizures
• Neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s disease, dementia, Huntington’s disease, etc.

To speak, messages must go from your brain to your mouth. These messages tell the muscles how and when to move to make sounds. When you have apraxia of speech, the messages do not get through correctly due to brain damage. You might not be able to move your lips or tongue the right way to say sounds. Sometimes, you might not be able to speak at all.
Apraxia of speech is sometimes called acquired apraxia of speech, verbal apraxia, or dyspraxia. It is a Motor Speech Disorder. You can also have apraxia in other parts of your body, like in your arms or legs. This is called limb apraxia.

How serious your apraxia is depends on what type of brain damage you have. Apraxia can happen at the same time as other speech or language problems. You may have muscle weakness in your mouth. This is called dysarthria and it is another Motor Speech Disorder. You could also have trouble understanding what others say or telling others what you are thinking. This is called aphasia.