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.
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.
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.
It's really essential to understand how brain function works to really tap into how learners learn.
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.