| Dysarthria Type |
Distinguishing Perceptual Speech Characteristics |
Distinguishing Physical Characteristics |
| Flaccid |
- continuous breathiness
- diplophonia
- audible inspiration or stridor
- nasal emission
- short phrases
- hypernasality
- rapid deterioration and recovery with rest
- imprecise alternating motion rates (AMRs)
|
- weakness
- flaccidity
- atrophy
- fasciculations
- hypoactive gag reflex
- facial myokymia
- rapid deterioration and recovery with rest
- synkinesis
- nasal backflow while swallowing
|
| Spastic |
- slow rate
- strained or harsh voice quality
- pitch breaks
- slow and regular AMRs
|
- pathologic oral reflexes (sucking reflex; snout reflex; jaw jerk reflex)
- lability of affect
- hypertonia
- hyperactive gag reflex
|
| Ataxic |
- irregular articulatory breakdowns
- excess and equal stress
- distorted vowels
- excessive loudness variation
- irregular AMRs
|
- dysmetric jaw, face, and tongue AMRs
- head tremor
|
| Hypokinetic |
- monopitch
- monoloudness
- reduced loudness and stress
- tendency for rapid or accelerated rate
- inappropriate silences
- rapidly repeated phonemes
- palilalia
- rapid, "blurred" AMRs
|
- masked facial expression
- tremulous jaw, lips, tongue
- reduced range of motion on AMR tasks
- resting tremor
- rigidity
|
| Hyperkinetic |
- prolonged intervals
- sudden forced inspiration/expiration
- transient breathiness
- transient vocal strain or harshness
- voice stoppages/arrests
- voice tremor
- myoclonic vowel prolongation
- intermittent hypernasality
- marked deterioration with increased rate
- inappropriate vocal noises
- intermittent breathy/aphonic segments
- distorted vowels
- excessive loudness variation
- slow and irregular AMRs
|
- involuntary head, jaw, face, tongue, velar, laryngeal, and respiratory movements
- relatively sustained deviation of head position
- multiple motor tics
- myoclonus of palate, pharynx, larynx, lips, nares, tongue, or respiratory muscles
- jaw, lip, tongue, pharyngeal, or palatal tremor
- facial grimacing during speech
|
| Unilateral Upper Motor Neuron |
- slow rate
- imprecise articulation
- irregular articulatory breakdowns
- strained voice quality
- reduced loudness
|
- unilateral lower face weakness
- unilateral lingual weakness without atrophy/fasciculations
- nonverbal oral apraxia
|
