How to Help Someone Speak Again
A traumatic encephalon injury can touch your speech and language skills in various ways. For example, some individuals lose control of the muscles that make upward the rima oris while others may struggle to remember words. Luckily, many people acquire to speak again after brain injury by working with a speech-linguistic communication pathologist and practicing targeted exercises.
To help you understand how to improve speech and language skills following a brain injury, this article will hash out:
- How encephalon injury affects voice communication
- Is it possible to regain speech communication after encephalon injury?
- Best practices for learning to speak once more subsequently brain injury
How Brain Injury Affects Speech
Speech and language issues are just 1 of the many possible effects of traumatic brain injury.
If you have suffered a brain injury and have trouble speaking and forming words, this is about likely because your injury caused damage to the linguistic communication centers of the brain. These are located in the ascendant hemisphere, which for nigh people, is the left side of the brain.
At that place are 3 types of speech and language disorders y'all may experience after a brain injury: dysarthria, apraxia of speech, and aphasia.
Dysarthria refers to when the muscles used for oral communication are weakened or paralyzed, leading to slurred or mumbled speech. This is caused past damage to the part of the brain responsible for motor control of the muscles around your rima oris such as the tongue.
Apraxia of speech describes when a person has problem initiating and carrying out the movement patterns necessary to say words correctly, due to impaired coordination stemming from the brain. With apraxia, the muscles are not affected similar they are with dysarthria. Instead, the encephalon pathways involved in planning the movements used in producing speech are affected.
Aphasia describes when a person has difficulty speaking fluently and/or understanding what others are maxim. It differs from apraxia in that it'due south not a problem with the move patterns required to create speech communication; rather, information technology is more than specific to cognitively retrieving and comprehending words. Individuals with aphasia may also struggle with reading and writing.
Now that you empathize how speech can be affected post-obit a brain injury, permit's hash out how the brain can recover speech and language skills.
Is it Possible to Regain Speech After Brain Injury?
Learning to speak again subsequently brain injury is possible because of the brain's natural power to heal itself. This phenomenon is called neuroplasticity and it allows the brain to rewire its neural circuitry to make adaptive changes. Equally a result, nearly any role afflicted by brain injury (including speech) has the potential to be relearned and recovered.
Many brain injury survivors regain their ability to speak past promoting neuroplasticity. The near effective mode to promote neuroplasticity is to continuously do the exact skills you wish to better. Consistent repetition stimulates the brain and reinforces demand for that office.
Therefore, in gild to improve control of the oral muscles, individuals must practice moving them. Likewise, in guild to improve speaking, individuals must practice saying words and forming sentences. The following department will farther discuss how to better spoken communication after brain injury.
Best Practices for Learning to Speak Again Subsequently Brain Injury
Every encephalon injury and its recovery are unique. Therefore, a personalized approach to speech and language recovery is essential.
Speaking is a very complex activity that requires many unlike parts of the encephalon to work together. Besides being able to physically grade the words with the muscles of your mouth, several other skills are involved, including:
- Memory and recall
- Listening
- Swallowing
- Breathing
- Comprehension
- Trouble solving
Developing the many skills involved in the employ of spoken communication and language is critical for effective advice. Depending on what type of spoken language disorder you have, various interventions may be recommended.
Beneath, we'll talk over some of the virtually constructive ways to improve speech communication later on a encephalon injury.
i) Work with a Spoken language-Language Pathologist
The first stride to learning how to speak over again after brain injury is to become evaluated by a speech-language pathologist (SLP). They will assess your speech communication functions, determine what type of oral communication disorder you have, and develop a personalized rehabilitation program total of effective speech therapy exercises.
For example, when weak or uncoordinated muscles are part of the problem (such as in the case of dysarthria) an SLP may recommend oral-motor exercises such equally blowing a whistle, yawning, or making popping noises with your lips.
In contrast, someone who experiences difficulties remembering words may practice identifying pictures or calling out words that belong in a sure category.
The fundamental to regaining your spoken language is to exercise oral communication therapy activities several times a day. As you go along to do, you volition stimulate the brain and promote neuroplasticity.
2) Participate in Singing Therapy
Research shows that "singing or intoning spoken words and phrases tin can help facilitate spoken language output in patients with non-fluent aphasia."
This is because singing engages the right, more-creative side of the brain, whereas speaking utilizes the left side. Since near speaking disorders are caused by damage to the left side of the encephalon, the side that controls singing is left intact. As a result, even if you cannot speak, you probably can notwithstanding sing.
Brain injury patients who have used singing therapy have shown nifty improvements in controlling their rima oris movements and in sentence production.
3) Use Speech Therapy Apps
The fundamental to learning how to speak once again after brain injury is to practice as much as possible. While participating in speech therapy is constructive, individuals also need to practice speech exercises at home to optimize their recovery.
An excellent way to do this is to download speech therapy apps onto your phone or tablet. For example, the CT Speech and Cognitive Therapy App includes over 100,000 exercises designed by speech-language pathologists. Its smart bogus intelligence (AI) applied science optimizes the exercises to your power level to personalize your recovery feel.
Speech therapy apps provide access to speech therapy exercises 24/7 and then that you tin practice at your convenience.
Learning to Speak Over again After Encephalon Injury: Primal Points
Recovering the ability to speak well is ane of the virtually important steps in traumatic brain injury rehab programs. Speech is how we connect with each other and communicate our thoughts, feelings, and needs to others.
By using at-dwelling house speech therapy exercises, participating in singing therapy, and working with a speech pathologist to stimulate adaptive changes in the brain, at that place is promise for relearning how to speak again.
Hopefully, this article has shown you lot that non only is it possible to regain your speech merely that if y'all work hard enough, you have a good chance at recovery. Expert luck!
featured images: iStock/shironosov/SIphotography
How to Help Someone Speak Again
Source: https://www.flintrehab.com/learning-to-speak-again-after-brain-injury/