Though dysarthria can develop at any age, many of those who suffer from dysarthria are young children. Because of this motor speech disorder, children with dysarthria have difficulty controlling the muscles that control speech, such as the lips, jaws, tongue, larynx, and respiratory muscles. This prevents them from speaking clearly and can result in an inability to raise the volume of speech, involuntary mumbling, slurred speech, speech that is unusually fast or slow, or speech that lacks normal rhythm and intonation.
The medical community has in fact discovered numerous diseases, conditions, and injuries that have been linked as childhood dysarthria causes. All of these causes have some relation to damage to the brain or nervous system, especially when the location of the damage is close to the area of the brain that is responsible for speech. Once the brain is no longer able to properly control the muscles that control speech and respiration, talking becomes more difficult or impossible. Understanding childhood dysarthria causes can help to better diagnose the disorder as well as assist with treatment.
Traumatic Brain Injury
One of the many childhood dysarthria causes is a traumatic brain injury. If a child suffers blunt force trauma to their head, this can cause serious brain damage that affects their ability to speak. This can occur at any age, but young children are very vulnerable because they have less ability to protect themselves. Some traumatic brain injuries occur during birth.
When a child is being born, a large amount of pressure is put on the head by the vaginal walls or cervix. If there are any complications with the delivery, if it takes an excessive amount of time, or if there is cephalopelvic disproportion, the head compression may be severe enough to affect the brain. In addition, these same types of delivery complications can result in the child’s brain not receiving enough oxygen, also known as hypoxia. Just a few minutes of oxygen deprivation can result in lasting brain damage such as childhood dysarthria.
Congenital Dysarthria
If a child has dysarthria at a very early age it may be due to birth injury, but it could also be caused by a congenital disorder. Some baby’s brains develop improperly or incompletely while still in the womb, and this can be caused by a number of different factors such as the mother’s diet, use of narcotics, medications, and other substances that negatively affect the child’s development. A child who has congenital dysarthria will already have the disorder even before they are born, but it may not be diagnosable until the child reaches an age when he or she should begin speaking.
Neurological Conditions
There are numerous neurological conditions that have been identified as childhood dysarthria causes. One of the leading causes of dysarthria is cerebral palsy. Though not every child with cerebral palsy will suffer from childhood dysarthria, there is a strong link. Some other neurological conditions that may cause dysarthria include:
- Lou Gehrig’s disease
- Muscular dystrophy
- Guillain-Barre syndrome
- Multiple sclerosis
- Lyme disease
- Huntington disease
- Parkinson’s disease
- Wilson’s disease
- Myasthenia gravis
In addition to these neurological disorders, strokes and brain tumors are also proven childhood dysarthria causes. Though strokes are more common in adults and especially those of advanced age, neonatal strokes have a strong potential to affect the speech centers of the brain and can affect these areas at a child’s most critical periods of cognitive development. When brain tumors are located in the areas of the brain that control speech and respiratory function, they also have the potential to cause childhood dysarthria and severe respiratory problems.
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