Motor Speech Disorders – Review

Vocabulary flashcards highlighting the key terms, definitions, and distinctions among dysarthria, apraxia of speech, and aphasia, as well as related concepts of intelligibility, comprehensibility, error types, and compensatory strategies.

Motor Speech Disorders

Speech disorders caused by neurological impairment that disrupt planning, programming, control, or execution of speech.

Dysarthria

Neurologic speech disorder of movement that reduces strength, speed, steadiness, tone, or accuracy of respiratory, phonatory, resonatory, articulatory, and prosodic movements.

Apraxia of Speech (AOS)

Neurologic speech disorder characterized by impaired planning or programming of sensorimotor commands for phonetically and prosodically normal speech, usually without muscle weakness.

Aphasia

Acquired neurogenic language disorder (typically left-hemisphere) causing deficits in speaking, understanding, reading, and writing.

Motor Programming Disturbance

Primary deficit underlying apraxia of speech; difficulty generating or sequencing motor commands for speech.

Motor Production Disturbance

Primary deficit underlying dysarthria; impaired execution of movements for both speech and non-speech tasks.

Phonemic Paraphasia

Speech error reflecting breakdown in retrieval of phonological word forms, common in aphasia.

Apraxic Error

Speech error arising from faulty encoding of phonological patterns into appropriate speech movements; often distorted and self-corrected.

Intelligibility

Extent to which a listener understands a speaker’s message using the acoustic signal alone.

Comprehensibility

Extent to which a listener understands speech using the acoustic signal plus contextual, situational, and supplemental cues.

Right Hemiparesis

Weakness on the right side of the body; frequently accompanies left-hemisphere stroke and may co-occur with AOS or aphasia.

Nonverbal Oral Apraxia (NVOA)

Impaired ability to perform purposeful, non-speech oral movements despite intact musculature; may accompany AOS or aphasia.

Prosodic Abnormality

Disrupted rhythm, stress, or intonation patterns; prominent in apraxia of speech.

Alphabet Supplementation

Compensatory strategy in which speakers point to or write initial letters to enhance comprehensibility.

Rate Reduction

Compensatory technique that slows speaking pace to improve articulatory precision and intelligibility in dysarthria.

Respiratory Support (Speech)

Breath control necessary for adequate speech loudness and phrase length; often weak in dysarthria.

Laryngeal Valving

Function of the vocal folds for voicing; inefficiency contributes to dysarthric speech impairments.

Velopharyngeal Function

Closure between soft palate and pharyngeal wall; weakness causes hypernasality in dysarthria.

Articulatory Groping

Visible searching movements of the articulators when attempting speech; hallmark of apraxia of speech.

Middle Cerebral Artery (MCA) Stroke

Common vascular event leading to left-hemisphere damage and resulting motor speech disorders or aphasia.