If you repeatedly slur your words or certain sounds, you might feel embarrassed or very concerned about your situation. Slurring is a speech impediment that can develop in childhood or sometime during your adult life. Although you may feel discouraged or hopeless about your speech difficulty, you can find help for it. Learn more about slurring and why you possibly do it below.
What's Slurring?
Most people may associate slurring with drinking too much alcohol or using too many drugs. Although these things can make you slur, they're usually temporary or short-lived. Slurring that occurs all the time is often the result of a brain or neurological problem. The nervous system controls many areas of the body, including the muscles that help you speak.
The muscles and soft tissues inside your oral cavity and throat rely on the nervous system to work properly. Conditions, such as stroke and spinal cord infections, can weaken the nerves in your body that control how well you speak and form words. You develop a condition known as dysarthria.
Dysarthria causes you to slur or slow down your words so much that it may be difficult to understand you. You may also struggle to make out certain sounds or control the volume of your words. Your inability to talk clearly and evenly may concern your family members and friends.
It's important to learn why you slur your words so much. In this case, you can see a speech pathologist for help.
Can You Control How You Speak?
A speech language pathologist will want to know about your current and previous health state before they treat your slurring. Strokes and another severe neurological conditions can affect many muscles in the face, head, and throat. Some of the muscles work together to control how you open and close your mouth, swallow, and move your tongue. A pathologist may need to "train" all of these tissues to help you overcome your slurring.
The treatments for dysarthria can vary, depending on the extent of your slurring. Voice training and muscle control exercises are common treatments for dysarthria. The exercises strengthen the muscles in your face, head, and throat over time, which may help you control your slurring better. If your slurring is extensive a pathologist might try other methods to achieve more successful results, including breathing exercises to improve the airflow through your nose and throat.
To learn more about controlling or treating your slurring, contact a speech language pathologist today, such as at the Center for Communication Care LLC.
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