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.
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.
Cerebral palsy refers to a group of conditions that are caused by problems in brain development and that affect how movement and motor control happen in children. Problems with walking and talking are often the way people start a conversation about cerebral palsy.
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.
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.
Cerebral Palsy can be described by the way it affects movement and motor function, the part of the body affected and by how severe the impact is.
For some the day-to-day problems faced by children and adults with cerebral palsy, and their carers, are not motor ones alone. It is important that you discuss other areas of your child's development if you have concerns.
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.
It is important to understand the brain injury for each individual person, because they can be really different. Where the injury is can give us important clues to what motor problems that individual will have. The time you have the biggest risk to having a stroke is as a baby, not as an adult so it is important to understand what may be happening in the infants brain.
The future of science advancements is endless. In this video Dr. Ted Conway discusses the possibility of thought to speech. One of the really interesting areas of research in biomedical engineering is thought to speech. The concept of thought to speech is fairly straightforward, the execution to make this a reality is a little more complicated.
There are some medical conditions or events that can happen during pregnancy, delivery, or shortly thereafter that may increase a baby's risk of being born with cerebral palsy.
Cerebral Palsy affects body movement, muscle control, muscle coordination, muscle tone, reflex, posture and balance. Depending on the part of the brain that is injured depends on how someone’s muscle tone will be effected. For people with spastic CP they have increased muscle tone because of the part of the brain that's injured. If causes very tight muscles which in turn effects the movement of the joints and of the limbs. For others who have dyskinetic CP they lose the ability to have voluntary control over their muscles, and they can have jerky and uncontrolled movement patterns.
Infants with CP frequently have developmental and motor delays, in which they are slow to reach milestones such as learning to roll over, sit, crawl, or walk. The symptoms of CP differ in type and severity from one person to the next, and may even change in an individual over time.
Cerebral Palsy is the most common motor disability in children caused by abnormal development or damage to the motor area of the brain’s outer layer (called the cerebral cortex), the part of the brain that directs muscle movement. This damage can occur before, during, or shortly after birth.
CP is the most common lifelong physical disability. Globally over 17 million people have cerebral palsy.
The specific motor types present in CP are determined by the extent, type, and location of the brain injury.
CP describes a spectrum of conditions that affects individuals in many different ways. Your care team may use the term GMFCS which stands for Gross Motor Function Classification Scale and is used to describe what mobility aids your child may need to complete certain tasks.