Speech impairments like dysarthria are common in children with cerebral palsy (CP) which can greatly affect participation across environments. Our study examined how speech impairment severity changes over time in 101 children with CP at 4, 6, 8, and 10 years of age.
When a person is looking for a way to communicate in alternative ways, they need to find something that really works for them. They need to try to find a voice that sounds natural. They want to try to find a way to be efficient. They want to be able to communicate as normally as possible, even though they're not using their biological voice.
We studied how common pain was thought to be due to muscle spasticity in the legs or arms is in children/adolescents with CP.
Dysarthria is a motor speech disorder that affects how clear and understandable a person’s speech is. Between 50-90% of people with CP have dysarthria.
CPF Executive Director Rachel Byrne and Mary Gannotti, PhD, PT discuss pain across the lifespan in cerebral palsy.
Pain in people with cerebral palsy is very common, and probably not evaluated frequently enough.
A lot of people with cerebral palsy will experience pain over the course of their life. Through better assessment we can provide better interventions, which will lead to a better quality of life.
The Cerebral Palsy Foundation has created a factsheet to help guide you in understanding and treating pain with CP. This fact sheet has been created for individuals with cerebral palsy to provide basic guidance surrounding common causes and potential treatment of pain.
CPF Executive Director Rachel Byrne and speech therapist, Kristen Allison, PhD, CCC-SLP discuss communication and Cerebral Palsy.
My boys were exactly the same amazing, lovable, adorable, brilliant little boys after the diagnosis, that they had been before it. The exact same.
Shelby Nurse discusses how pain has been part of the reality throughout her life. In this video Shelby talks about what strategies and pain management techniques have worked for her and how this have changed and different times.
I suppose there has to be one silver lining that comes out of being sheltered in place for months on end (due to Covid-19): I’ve finally been catching up on sleep. The recommended nightly hours of sleep is between 7 and 9 hours . For me, getting a good night’s sleep has been the best way to regain a sense of control and ease during such unnerving times. Not only does sleep improve mood and
There are so many different causes for potential pain that it can be hard to find the cause. If you have CP or are a parent of someone with CP it is really important to empower yourself with information on pain including what causes it and options for treatment. You need to work out what is causing the pain not just mask it with pain medication.
We all have different towns and we all have different things that we do in the course of the day. It may be that the student is a great artist or a great writer. When it comes to assistive technology we have to think about what is going to give that student the ability to do what they love without having to see roadblocks and go, "I can't do that”. There are so many tools out there, whether it's a communication app, a video app, a math tool. With assistive technology you are not making the student into what you want them to be.
The typical cognitive assessments that are used for children require them to be able to use their hands to point to pictures or hold puzzle pieces.
When you use alternate means of communication it can be really frustrating to go out in community. It is hard to know whether people are understanding you and whether they will take the time to listen. A lot of times it's hard for people to admit that they're not always comfortable with a device or a wheelchair or person who does things differently. So the more we can expose and educate people the better off we all will be. When we talk about acceptance, we're not just talking about people in society accepting people with disabilities. We're also talking about people with disabilities who are using alternate means of communication and how difficult it is for them to be out in the community.
It's really essential to understand how brain function works to really tap into how learners learn.
Many of our products today have accessibility supports in them to the extent where we don't have to purchase anything else. It's already in there. Your phone, your tablet, your smart home devices. If you're going to look for these features on your devices, you can start in your settings. There should be something in there that says accessibility. Go in there, see what's available. The manufacturers have done a really nice job of describing these features right within the settings to give you a sense of what they're going to do.
Let me tell you about multimodal communication. We, as typical communicators, all use many different strategies. We use speech, gestures, facial expressions, technology, and no-tech solutions. As communicators, we all size up the situation based upon our communication partners, the context, the environment and then we choose to use the most effective communication strategy.
"Cerebral palsy is primarily a motor impairment so it's really important to look at what the child’s motor function is. Are they developing on the trajectory of a child who has cerebral palsy or are they developing as we would expect a baby to develop? "
A speech language pathologist is someone who is trained in working with kids and adults. Everything from working with articulation errors and correcting things to what I do, which is working with people with profound physical impairments and getting them augmentative communication strategies.
One of the things that we typically forget when we look at kids who have conditions like CP, is that they're first and foremost, children.