Speech therapy for children with dysarthria acquired before three years of age

Authors’ conclusions

We found no firm evidence of the effectiveness of speech and language therapy to improve the speech of children with early acquired dysarthria. No change in practice is warranted at the present time. Rigorous research is needed to investigate if the positive changes in children’s speech observed in small descriptive studies are shown in randomised controlled trials. Research should examine change in children’s speech production and intelligibility. It should also investigate the secondary education, health and social care outcomes of intervention, including children’s interaction with family, friends and teachers, their participation in social and educational activities, and their quality of life. Cost and acceptability of interventions must also be investigated.

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Speech therapy for children with early acquired dysarthria

Dysarthria is a disorder which reduces the control of movements for speech. Children with dysarthria often have shallow, irregular breathing and speak on small, residual pockets of air. They have low pitched, harsh voices, nasalised speech and very poor articulation. Together, these difficulties make the children’s speech difficult to understand. Dysarthria is caused by neurological impairment and can arise early in children’s lives, from neurological damage sustained before, during or after birth, such as in cerebral palsy, or in early childhood through traumatic brain injury or neurological disease. Communication difficulties have a profound impact on childrens development. They reduce the quality of life of children with cerebral palsy and place children at risk of social exclusion, educational failure and later unemployment. Speech and language therapy aims to help children to control the movements for breathing and speech and so become more intelligible. Small, observational studies have suggested that for some children therapy might have been associated with positive changes in intelligibility and clarity of children’s voices. This review aimed to investigate if therapy is generally effective for children with dysarthria acquired early in life, and if certain types of therapy may be better than others. We found no randomised controlled trials or controlled group studies which investigate the effects of speech and language therapy to improve the speech of children with dysarthria acquired below three years of age. Rigorous research, using randomised controlled trials, is needed to evaluate if therapy can help children to increase the intelligibility of their speech and if enhanced intelligibility increases children’s participation in social and educational activities and their quality of life.

from NHS Evidence

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