Dysarthria associated with upper and lower motor neurone lesions

Abstract

Darley, Aronson and Brown (1975a, p. 2) have defined dysarthria as ‘a collective name for a group of related speech disorders that are due to disturbances in muscular control of the speech mechanism resulting from impairment of any of the basic motor processes involved in the execution of speech’. According to this definition, the term ‘dysarthria’ is restricted to those speech disorders which have a neurogenic origin (i.e. those speech disorders that result from damage to the central or peripheral nervous system), and does not include those speech disorders associated with either somatic structural defects (e.g. cleft palate, congenitally enlarged pharynx, congenitally short palate and malocclusion) or psychological disorders (e.g. psychogenic aphonia).