Do you mumble? Want to improve your articulation? Do you have dysarthria caused by a stroke or other neurologic disease?
This video is to help you speak more clearly now. We're going to do 4 speech exercises to practice speaking more clearly. Talking is an automatic process and speaking more clearly initially involves turning this into a voluntary process.
How? By over-enunciating and slowing your rate of speech. First let's talk about over-enunciating or over-articulating.
Dysarthria tends to impact consonants the most. So focusing on crisp and exaggerated consonant production will help your speech clarity. For example, if I'm saying the word "talk" over-articulating the "t" and the "k" sound are going to help the clarity of that word.
Talk. It might feel a little funny at first to practice speaking this way but you get used to your oral motor movements becoming bigger and more precise. Practicing precise and accurate articulations requires you to slow down.
Try taking a deep breath before you start speaking and using pauses in natural places like the ends of phrases, sentences and between thoughts. Especially if you've had a stroke or other neurologic disease your articulators like your tongue and your lips may need some extra time to reach their targets than prior to the neurologic incident. So while we do these next exercises keep in mind to over-articulate and go slow.
Exercise 1. Let's do diadochokinetic tasks. Speech therapists often use this as an assessment tool, but it can also be used as an exercise for speech coordination.
We're going to repeat or alternate some syllabic speech sounds. Go slowly enough so that you can maintain the same rate and clarity. And you can gradually speed up as long as your clarity does not change.
The first syllable we'll do is "puh". Take a deep breath breath and say "puh" 10 times. Puh puh puh puh puh puh puh puh puh puh.
Now "tuh" Tuh tuh tuh tuh tuh tuh tuh tuh tuh tuh "kuh" Kuh kuh kuh kuh kuh kuh kuh kuh kuh kuh And now we'll put two of those together. "Puh-tuh" If you can't keep up with my rate just go as slow as you need to to keep that crisp production at an even rate. Puh-tuh puh-tuh puh-tuh puh-tuh puh-tuh puh-tuh puh-tuh puh-tuh puh-tuh puh-tuh All right, now we'll put all three together for "puh-tuh-kuh.
" Deep breath. Puh-tuh-kuh puh-tuh-kuh puh-tuh-kuh puh-tuh-kuh puh-tuh-kuh puh-tuh-kuh puh-tuh-kuh puh-tuh-kuh puh-tuh-kuh puh-tuh-kuh. That's challenging.
I ran out of breath at the end. Just for fun let's do it one more time with the word "patty cake". Deep breath.
Patty cake patty cake patty cake patty cake patty cake patty cake patty cake patty cake patty cake patty cake. Nice job. Exercise 2.
We're going to say some multisyllabic words. I'll say the word then you repeat it. If this feels easy you can try putting these words into a sentence, like, I live in California.
It's true I really do. Exercise 3. Tongue twisters are a great way to practice your articulatory coordination and clarity.
Your goal is not speed, it's accuracy and clarity. So go slow enough so that your articulation is crisp. I used to use this tongue twister as a kid.
Pretty sure my dad taught me it. Here we go: Exercise 4 is your homework. Take the strategies practiced today and apply them to reading out loud.
You can read a book, a social media post, the newspaper but read it aloud practicing over-articulation slowed speech and using pauses in natural places while reading. It might take some time to implement the speech strategies during spontaneous conversation and you'll need consistent practice to help these strategies become more natural and generalize to your spontaneous conversation. To track your progress record yourself telling a story or reading out loud and then repeat that recording in a month after you practice on a daily basis.
Let me know how these exercises worked for you and be kind to yourself!
