speech impediment funny

Speech Impediment Puns

A list of puns related to "Speech Impediment"

On each side of my buckin head you buckin idiot!!

A Heliolisp

It was too whiskey!

He really made a meth of himself

He couldn’t finish his sentence.

An Ambulance. Difficulty speaking is a common sign of a stroke.

He couldn't sweep.

Lambo. ^^^I'm ^^^^so ^^^^^sorry.

Unless you have a speech impediment

He said "Thure" and then slapped his knee.

It's a cold November evening and 2 men out on the town. They enter a bar and approach the keeper. One man says to the other man "Hey Donkey, I think it's your turn" and walks off to use the toilet.

Donkey looks at the bar keeper and says "T-T-T-T-T-Two B-B-B-B-Beers Ppppppppp-Ppppplease"

Given his speech impediment, the keeper feels sorry for the man and say "Do you mind him calling you Donkey"

Donkey looks sadly at the keeper and say "He-aw-He-aw-He always calls me that"

Okay so this one may not be too special, but I thought it was hilarious. My nephew has a slight speech impediment which made it all the better.

I was visiting my brother and his family over the weekend. I decided to take the kids to the store so I yelled down the hall for my nephew (7 years old and sitting in his gitch) to get dressed. My niece who was also in the room said "I am dressed". Immediately after I heard this tiny little giggle followed by "hi dressed, I'm Isaac".

No one taught him this. All natural. The father is strong in this one.

Note: Quality Very Varying (I see what I did there) and sometimes subject to specialist knowledge. So I apologise in advance. Shame me with your better puns.

While I was languishing in the Language Centre, doing some semantics antics and considering how all the other linguistics students despised and derided me, I was accosted by a stout man with large glasses who made me a preposition. It was that I should collect terrible puns, to do with linguistics, in order to ingratiate myself yet further with the other linguistics students (including even the phonetics fanatics).

I'm struggling to think of a pun to do with grammaticality that both makes sense and "Is grandma tickly?" correct. I'm also stuck on 'morphologician'. (I'm not actually sure that's a particularly logical word for the subject, though I guess that's more for, er, more for a logician to worry about.)

The problem I have with writing about phonological variation is that one is constantly forced to choose between being fun or logical - very Asian!I always get in trouble with electricians, they think I'm calling them a 'dialectician' whereas in fact I'm just saying "Die, electrician."

I like pscycholinguistics – the only department of linguistics where it’s acceptable to wear a cycle helmet. My Australian accent is terrible but I like to think my Sath Efrican one is predicate. My favourite accent is Received Pronunciation, because it is the accent chiefly used by invisible Japanese people who are ordered online. When the first recipient of an invisible Japanese person got the parcel, they wrote a complaint saying "Received but can't see Asian" and the name stuck.

Why did the speakers whose native languages weren't English, but whose only shared language was English, but they weren't very good at it and kept on having to stop to think about it, stop talking to one another? They came to an agreement. (Get it? If not, write your answer on a pastecard and paste it to the below address.)

What did the 'a' say to the 'the'? "You definitely are ticklish, 'the'!"

Why was the small man eaten by the large bear, which was proportionately bigger than him? It had, er, relative claws.

I think the reason there are so many speakers of Russian is because they all partake in an activity called "copulae shun". (Ok, ok, I know, that was Pushkin it.)

I know a man called Hillary who can, might, should, did, must, shall and will ride an ox. We call him "Ox Hillary".

I always think the verb 'to be' in the senten

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When a Woman Didn't Realize I'd Heard Her Making Fun of My Speech Impediment

I try really hard to not take things that strangers say personally, especially when I know I wasn’t meant to hear it.

But that’s something I believe everyone should become more aware of: you never know who can hear you. You never know how deep your words will cut. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your words are what will keep me up at night.

Despite my speech impediment I recently took a job at a call center, and let me tell you, I get my share of rude callers daily. But today something a little different happened. We are not allowed to hang up the phone at the end of a call; we must wait for the member to disconnect. I had finished my call and told the member to “have a great rest of her week,” and I thought she’d hung up, but instead she must of just put the phone down. That’s when I heard her begin to make fun of me to who I assume is her husband.

“Could you ever imagine having a person with a speech impediment work for you…?”

She then went on to mimic the way I talk and finished by saying she “couldn’t get my voice right” because I “sounded more retarded than that.” She and her husband laughed before realizing the phone wasn’t off and hanging up on me.

The thing is, I know I have a speech impediment, and I know it can be hard for people to understand me. I try so hard to speak slowly and clearly, and I have come to accept that I am not going to grow out of this, but that doesn’t stop it from being the thing I’m the most self-conscious about. The incident today involved a 70-something-year-old woman who was making fun of a stranger she will never talk to again and probably never think of. But to me she’s the woman who tore a hole in an insecurity I was just starting to close.

Yet another call came in, and my day went on. And I know I have a voice much greater than the one that woman made fun of.

Image via Thinkstock.

My name is Skylar Frazier I am a 22-year-old former student at the University of Florida where I studied Family, Youth, and Community Sciences. I’m not all that interesting, but I am OK with that. I have a speech impediment that was diagnosed as a lisp along with an anxiety-induced stutter that people often like to describe as what “makes me me,” but I am so much more than that. I believe in loving deeply, holding onto hope, and finding the motivation to wake up every day.

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Rhotacism: A complete guide to this speech impediment

Remember when you were a child and spoke by making your “R’s” sound like “W’s” and everything thought it was cute? That’s known as rhotacism and some people live with it even as adults. What is rhotacism, what is it like in other languages, and what are its symptoms? What does it look like as a speech impediment and what are some examples? What are its causes? How does it affect the brain? Is it curable and how can it be fixed? This article will answer all your doubts about rhotacism. 

What is rhotacism?

Rhotacism is a speech impediment that is defined by the lack of ability, or difficulty in, pronouncing the sound R . Some speech pathologists, those who work with speech impediments may call this impediment de-rhotacization because the sounds don’t become rhotic, rather they lose their rhotic quality. It could also be called a residual R error.

It’s not such an uncommon phenomenon and actually also happens with the letter L , a phenomenon known as lambdacism . Sometimes people mistake these speech impediments for a lisp, of which they are not. Within the 2000-2001 school year, more than 700,000 students within the American public school system were categorized as having either a language impediment or a speech impediment. Ironically, all three speech impediments contain the troubled letter within them.

The word rhotacism comes from the New Latin rhotacism meaning peculiar or excessive use of [r]. The Latin word came from Ancient Greek word rhōtakismós which means to incorrectly use “rho” which is the equivalent of the Greek R. For language nerds, here’s a really great explanation of how the word came into being.

How does rhotacism work in different languages?

Rhotacism is, in theory , more common among people whose native language has a trilled R. For example, in Spanish the “rr” is a trilled R. Other languages with a trilled R include Bulgarian, Hungarian, Arabic, Finnish, Romanian, Indonesian, Russian , Italian, and most Swedish speakers. Some people might mock Asians, specifically Chinese, for not being able to pronounce the English word “broccoli” correctly- rather pronouncing it “browccoli”. This isn’t due to a rhotacism, however. It’s actually due to the fact that Mandarin (Chinese) words can have an “r” sound in the beginning of a word, but not in the middle or end of a word. This leads them to have issues in their phonotactics and creates an inability to pronounce the English “R” in the middle of words.

Symptoms of rhotacism

• Some people try to hide their impediment by avoiding words with R ’s in them.
• An overall inability to say R sounds
• Using trilled R’s or guttural R’s (such as the French R) when trying to pronounce the regular English R.

Rhotacism as a speech impediment

Using a strict classification, only about 5%-10% of the human population speaks in a completely normal way. Everyone else suffers from some type of speech disorder or another. For children of any language, the R sounds are usually the hardest to master and often end up being the last ones a child learns. That’s why baby talk if you think about it, doesn’t really use explicit or strong R sounds. In English, rhotacism often comes off as a W sound which is why “Roger Rabbit” sounds like “Woger Wabbit”. R is often more difficult because a child has to learn the different combination of the /r/ sounds, not just the letter itself, unlike other letters. For example, when it comes before and after vowel sounds. The combination of a vowel with the /r/ sound is called a phenome and in English, there are eight combinations of these:

–        The prevocalic R , such as “rain”

–        The RL , such as “girl”

–        The IRE, such as “tire”

–        The AR, such as “car”

–        The EAR , “such as “beer”

–        The OR , such as “seashore”

–        The ER , such as “butter”

–        The AIR , such as “software”

A speech impediment is a speech disorder , not a language disorder . Speech disorders are problems in being able to produce the sounds of speech whereas language disorders are problems with understanding and/or being able to use words. Language disorders, unlike speech disorders, have nothing to do with speech production.

Often what happens is that the person speaking isn’t tensing their tongue enough, or not moving their tongue correctly (up and backward depending on the dialect) which makes the W or “uh” sound come out. It may also be that the person is moving their lips instead of their tongue.

Examples of rhotacism

• Barry Kripke from the TV show The Big Bang Theory has both rhotacism and lambdacism- meaning he has issues pronouncing both his R ’s and his L ’s.
• The most famous of rhotacism would be Elmer Fudd from Looney Tunes . He pronounces the word “rabbit” [ˈɹ̠ʷæbɪ̈t] as “wabbit” [ˈwæbɪ̈t]
• In Monty Python’s Life of Brian , the 1979 film’s character Pilate suffers from rhotacism. In the film, people mock him for his inability to be understood easily.

Here’s a video with a woman who suffers from rhotacism. She explains how difficult it can be to have the speech impediment.

Causes of rhotacism

For many people, the causes of rhotacism are relatively unknown-, especially in adults. However, scientists theorize that the biggest cause is that the person grew up in an environment where they heard R ’s in a weird way, the shape of their mouths are different than normal, or their tongues and lips never learned how to produce the letter. In children, this could happen because the parents or adults around think the way the child talks (using baby talk) is cute and the child never actually learns how to produce it.

For one internet forum user, it has to do with how they learned the language , “I speak various languages, I pronounce the “R” normal in Dutch, French, and Spanish, but I have a rhotacism when speaking English. It’s the way I learnt it.”

For other people, speech issues are a secondary condition to an already existing, serious condition. Physically, it would be a cleft lip or a cleft palate. Neurologically, it could be a condition such as cerebral palsy. It may also be a tongue tie . Almost everyone has a stretch of skin that runs along the bottom of their tongue. If that skin is too tight and reaches the tip of the tongue, it can make pronouncing (and learning how to pronounce) R ’s and L ’s difficult. If the tongue tie isn’t fixed early on, it can be incredibly difficult to fix and learn how to pronounce later.

How the brain affects rhotacism

The brain affects rhotacism only for those who suffer from it not due to a physical impediment (such as a cleft palate). For some, this could happen because the brain doesn’t have the phonemic awareness and never actually learned what the letter R is supposed to sound like. This is common with kids whose parents spoke to them in “baby talk” and encouraged the child’s baby talk, too. This kind of behavior only strengthens a child’s inner concept that / R / is pronounced like “w” or “uh”.

Another reason could be that the brain connections simply don’t allow the lips or mouth to move in the way they need to in order to pronounce the R . This inability has little to do with physical incapabilities and more to do with mental ones. Some people with rhotacism have an issue with their oral-motor skills which means that there isn’t sufficient communication in the parts of the brain responsible for speech production.

Treatment for rhotacism

Is rhotacism curable.

It can have negative social effects- especially among younger children, such as bullying, which lowers self-esteem and can have a lasting effect. However, if the impediment is caught early enough on and is treated rather quickly, there is a good overall prognosis meaning it’s curable.

        However, some people never end up being able to properly pronounce that R and they end up substituting other sounds, such as the velar approximant (like w sounds) , the uvular approximant (also known as the “French R ”), and the uvular trill ( like the trilled R in Spanish).

How to fix rhotacism

Rhotacism is fixed by speech therapy . Before anything else, there needs to be an assessment from a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) who will help decide if the problem can be fixed. If a child is involved, the SLP would predict if the child can outgrow the problem or not. After the diagnosis, a speech therapist will work with the person who suffers from the speech impediment by possibly having weekly visits with some homework and practice instructions. Therapy happens in spouts- a period of a few weeks and a break. There is a follow-up to see if there has been an improvement in pronunciation. In the U.S., children who are in school and have a speech disorder are placed in a special education program. Most school districts provide these children with speech therapy during school hours.

Another option, often used alongside speech therapy, is using a speech therapy hand-held tool that helps isolate the sound being pronounced badly and gives an image of the proper tongue placement to enable better pronunciation.

One study tested a handheld tactical tool (known as Speech Buddies) and the traditional speech therapy methods. The study found that students who used the hand-held tool (alongside speech therapy) improved 33% faster than those who used only the traditional speech therapy methods.

Have you or someone you know ever struggled with rhotacism? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

• Category: Wellness & Mental Health
• Tag: language , Language Disorder

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The Secret of Humphrey Bogart's Distinctive Voice

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen . Visit Eddie at his website .

Humphrey Bogart appeared in some 75 movies during his legendary career from 1930 to 1957. He is, in my own opinion, the greatest actor in motion picture history. His performances in Casablanca, Beat the Devil, The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, Treasure of the Sierra Madre , and dozens of others are brilliant, unique, and unsurpassed. My favorite Bogart film is definitely Key Largo (1948). Today, I think only the great Jack Nicholson and maybe Robert De Niro can ever approach Bogart's greatness as a film actor. One of the many things that made Bogart so great was his incredible ability to play both a very ethical, upright, honest "good guy" and a craven, unethical, immoral "bad guy." Probably the single most asked question regarding Humphrey Bogart is "Why did he talk that way?" Bogart had a trademark lisping way of speaking, caused by a scarred-up area of his mouth. The stories of just how Bogart got his trademark lisp number about a half-dozen. The first is that he got the lip scars from a beating his father, the very strict Belmont Bogart, gave him as a child. Supposedly this walloping occurred when he was a young boy. "Because his dad beat him" is the explanation Darwin Porter uses in his excellent biography The Secret Life of Humphrey Bogart . Later, Bogart told his friend David Niven that his lip scars were caused by "a childhood accident." Was Bogart trying to cover up for his father when he gave this obtuse explanation? Another version of the lisp cause is that Bogart caught a large wooden splinter in his lip at the age of 12. The most frequently told (and most accepted) story of Bogart's lisp and scars is that the injuries came in his days in the Navy. This exact story is the one Humphrey told to his friend Nathaniel Benchley. As a young man in 1918, Bogart enlisted in the Navy. He always had a deep love of the sea. The story goes that Humphrey was escorting a prisoner to Portsmouth Naval Prison in Kittery, Maine, by train. While switching trains in Boston, the prisoner smashed Bogart across the mouth with his shackles. The doctor, in sewing up Bogart's mouth injuries, did a shabby job and scars were the result. "Goddamn doctor," Bogart would later say, "Instead of stitching it up, he screwed it up." An alternate, but similar story about the scars could have come directly from a Humphrey Bogart film. In this version, Bogart was escorting his prisoner and the prisoner asked for a cigarette. While Bogart reached for the requested smoke, the prisoner smashed him across the face with his handcuffs. A third similar variation is that Bogart was actually uncuffing the prisoner's manacles, and the prisoner swatted Bogart across the mouth with his cuffed hand. It would seem that some blend or mixture of these three tales is the actual genesis of Bogart's lisp and scars.   Still another story of Bogart's mouth scars derives from his years in the Navy. In the story, Bogart's mouth was scarred during the shelling of his ship, the USS Leviathan , and he was cut by a piece of shrapnel. But strangely, his post-service physical makes no mention of the lip scar, although it mentions many smaller scars. Louise Brooks, the actress, who Bogart met in 1924, claims that when she met him, "He had some scar tissue on his lip, which his father might have repaired before he went into films" (in 1930). Oddly, Louise added, "His lip would give him no speech impediment, either before or after it was mended." Although the scarred lip may have given Bogart less than the full characteristic lisp we all known it undoubtedly played a part in his unique speech patterns. But Bogart many have exaggerated his lisp for effect. Over the years, Bogie did, indeed, practice various forms of lip gymnastics, accompanied by nasal tones, snarls, lisps, and slurs. His painful wince and menacing, fiendish grin are unsurpassed in movie history. But Bogart's brilliance as an actor took a lot more than the trademark lisp. He was definitely a superb, compelling actor. But one wonders is he would have been quite as immortal if he had a normal, smooth speech pattern. I guess it's kind of like imagining "What if Marilyn Monroe had bee a brunette instead of a blond?" or "What if James Dean had gotten his first film role as a middle-aged man instead of a 23-year-old?" Because of each of these people's immense talent, they would probably have created some kind of an effect, some kind of stir, regardless of the situation. But somehow, with the truly greats, every factor seems to come together and fit like a perfect puzzle.

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Top 10 hardest words to say with a lisp

Michael Nelli , Online Sports Editor | October 21, 2020

• Michael Nelli

The only thing that scares me is the letter S.

A lisp is something that is usually only found in kids before the age of five. It is a speaking disability that makes an S or a soft C sound like a “th” or a “sh.” I happen to have a lisp and would like to show the top 10 hardest words to say when having one.

There are some criteria. If you were hoping to see “Sally sells sea shells on the sea shore” or something of that nature, you will not find it. The list is based on ten somewhat common words in the English dictionary.

Number 10: Assassin. This word is difficult to say because of the amount of S’s and the prominence of them within the word. 4/9 of the letters are “s” and that is just overly difficult to say when you have a lisp. 3/10 difficulty factor.

Number 9: Sassy. Another problematic word as it is 60% the letter S. The letter starts to build up and because of the lisp my mouth gets spit riddled whenever I start to say it. 3.5/10 difficulty factor.

Number 8: Sauce. This one is a surprising one, I understand. With the combination of the S and soft C it is a very tough one to get across. I get caught up trying to say the right letters that most of the time it just sounds like gibberish. 4.5/10 difficulty factor.

Number 7: Senses. I personally don’t think this is a tough tough one. I struggle with it when I say it after a couple other words. Senseless or sense could have made sense here but senses is one that I have extreme trouble with mid-sentence. 4.5/10 difficulty factor

Number 6: Assists. Another weird word for some people to see. Yet again, this is one where the amount of S’s in it just gives you a run for your money. It is a tough one to use in any circumstance and I try my best to stay away from it at all costs. 5.25/10 difficulty factor.

Number 5: Mississippi. This is one that could be argued to be higher up on the list. It can be, but because of the difficulty the next four words, Mississippi is placed here. It isn’t easy by any means, it just doesn’t hold up to the next four. 6.5/10 difficulty factor.

Number 4: Systematic. A shocker here at number four as it doesn’t have a multitude of S’s or soft C’s. That “S” as the third letter really sneaks up on you when you say it, causing mayhem and distress for the rest of the word. 7/10 difficulty factor.

Number 3: Suspension. I struggle with this word more than students struggle taking standardized tests. It is in no way, shape or form an easy or anywhere close to easy word to say. The amount of S’s and the repetitive nature of them leads to a mind-boggling word of nothing. 8.5/10 difficulty factor.

Number 2: Specificities. This word is immensely more difficult to pronounce than any of the previously mentioned words. The S’s and C’s that are used in this word makes it nearly impossible for those with a speech impediment to truly pronounce. 9.75/10 difficulty factor.

Number 1: Statistician. It gives me nightmares even pondering over this word. The close-quartered combat of the S and C in the middle of the word is detrimental to my mouth when I attempt to say it in any circumstance. I stay away from this word as much as a rabbit would stay away from a wolf. 10/10 difficulty factor.

Now I understand this is a lighthearted list and it is meant to have some fun, but that doesn’t mean lessons can’t be taken. If you know someone with a speech impediment, don’t ask them to keep repeating phrases or words for your amusement; it’s not funny, it is hurtful. As I was taught from a young age, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

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Morgan Murphy • Mar 16, 2024 at 1:53 pm

Thank you now I know. The sassy assassin sauce stops the systematic racism in missisipi, is the worst tongue twister

John • Jun 22, 2023 at 6:01 pm

Hardest thing to say with a lisp, coming from someone with a lisp, is scissors

Breezy • Apr 14, 2023 at 12:17 pm

I am 42 years old and this is the most beautiful description of my trouble with words i have ever read. Thank you for assisting me to understand my lisp & pronunciation of the troubled words. ☮️?

Breezy • Apr 14, 2023 at 12:04 pm

I also was taught at a young age and still fully believe today that if you don’t have anything nice to say than do not say anything at all.

Peace & Love, Breezy

Stephanie • Feb 19, 2023 at 2:24 pm

i could not say ‘statistician’ i am not happy

Kat • Feb 16, 2023 at 11:20 am

I had a speech impediment until the 9th grade. This is when I started public school. They sent me to a speech therapist and it was corrected probably within a month. I don’t think most kids knew about it at my new school. I couldn’t do s. I would have to call out my graded paper in class, with A being a six. B was a five. I was an A student, but would only call out five. I believe the speech therapist changed my life. I am 70 now, am very successful and people say very attractive. I had low self esteem, some due to my speech. I have an amazing successful husband and am great full I got corrected. He is a psychologist and would probably not have rejected me because of that. But I probably would not have had the self esteem to have got into the relationship. I think you should correct it as early as possible. Surprisingly it my be fixed in no time

Justin • Apr 2, 2022 at 11:12 pm

I have a friend (fellow parent) and their son (9) clearly has a lisp. My concern is that they have raised him, thought it was cute, didn’t hear it, and/ or may not even notice it. My question is, should I pull them aside and address it, or just let it go? My intent is to help correct it before he gets too old and his peers get more aggressive and nasty. He’s intelligent and kind but I’m extremely concerned he is going to get picked on the older he gets. In my mind it seems better to nip it in the bud and work to correct it rather than expect the problem to solve itself via the public school system.

Daisy • Sep 23, 2022 at 1:14 am

Hey Justin, I’m not the writer of the post, but I am someone with a lisp. I can honestly say I’ve never experienced bullying of any kind over my lisp. If kids want to bully, they will find something to tease him over regardless of the lisp. I also can say that I’ve never had it interfere with me professionally as an engineer. Lisps really aren’t a big deal. I’d probably just leave it alone.

Melanie Smith • Sep 26, 2021 at 7:52 pm

What a cool article! And educational too. It was soulful and–yes–humorous–written. Well done!

angie • Apr 5, 2021 at 11:25 am

damn u cute

Baylee • Jan 7, 2021 at 1:05 am

So i tried this with my retainer in & omg. So hilarious!!

Perry DiGirolamo • Dec 25, 2020 at 2:07 pm

Really enjoyed this article. Very creative subject matter. Never would have that it could make/did make a great article.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reveals why he has a raspy voice – spasmodic dysphonia explained

Professor and Director of the Clinical Anatomy Learning Centre, Lancaster University

Disclosure statement

Adam Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Lancaster University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK.

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Anyone following the US presidential race may have noticed independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a particularly harsh-sounding voice. The cause is a neurological condition called spasmodic dysphonia.

Spasmodic dysphonia, also known as laryngeal dysphonia, often results in a shaky, tight or strained-sounding voice. It does not affect other functions of the vocal cords, such as laughing, crying or shouting.

It affects about one in every 50,000 people – with women being more prone to it than men. It usually develops between the ages of 30 and 50.

The causes aren’t clear, but one study found that 65% of people with the condition previously had measles or mumps – compared with the US national average of 15%.

A separate study found the measles and mumps vaccines helped protect against developing the condition. An interesting finding, if confirmed, given that RFK Jr. is a noted vaccine sceptic .

Other studies have suggested that a history of throat and sinus illnesses, mumps and rubella , intense occupational voice use, tremor, tics and compulsive behaviour are all associated with spasmodic dysphonia.

There are three types of spasmodic dysphonia, the most common being “adductor spasmodic dysphonia”, accounting for 85-95% of cases . In this version of the condition, the muscles that bring the vocal cords together are affected, making the cords stiffen or slam shut as a result of the spasms. This causes a strained or strangulated sound during speech.

The less common type is “abductor spasmodic dysphonia”, which causes spasms that trigger the cords to open. The reason this is rarer is there is only one muscle ( posterior cricoarytenoid ) on each side that opens the cords. This results in speech being quieter or weak.

Finally, incredibly rare is a spasmodic dysphonia that affects both the adductors and abductors.

There is no cure for spasmodic dysphonia, but there are treatments that can help alleviate the symptoms.

Botox injections have become the gold standard therapy. However, this is a short-term solution and requires an injection every three to six months . Speech therapy can also help by strengthening the defective muscles or enabling other muscles to compensate. Sometimes Botox and speech therapy are combined.

A more invasive treatment involves severing some of the adductor muscles (for the more common form of the condition). This mimics a permanent Botox injection.

A recent small study also showed that deep-brain stimulation (a type of pacemaker for the brain) can improve the voice quality of people with adductor spasmodic dysphonia.

Voice changes can signal other health problems

Ageing causes our voices to change. Over time, our vocal cords become stiffer and less flexible, which alters the sound of our voice . People who use their vocal cords regularly – such as singers – show significantly less change in sound than those who don’t sing.

But voice changes over a shorter period can suggest an illness.

Respiratory illnesses

Our respiratory system is lined by a special layer of cells called “pseudostratified columnar ciliated epithelium”. Among the columnar cells are specialised cells called goblet cells that produce mucus . The role of mucus is to prevent microbes (common cold, COVID and many other things) from getting deep into the respiratory system, by causing microbes to stick.

The cilia then beat the mucus upwards, about ten to 14 times a second , towards the larynx where the microbe-containing-mucus is swallowed and neutralised by stomach acid.

This accumulation of mucus is increased in people with vocal disorders, because the cords move less and so they are less likely to be able to clear the mucus.

Studies have shown that the most efficient way to remove excess mucus is by hard throat clearing .

Acid reflux

Acid reflux can make the voice hoarse . The rising stomach acid can cause swelling and scarring in the larynx . This changes the shape and structure of the cords, affecting their function and the sound they make.

Allergies are a significant contributor to vocal changes. The inflammatory reaction caused by exposure and activation by allergens, such as pollen, cause swelling in the vocal cords and increased mucus .

Antihistamines are often used to treat allergies. But, because they reduce the amount of mucus produced, they tend to dry out the larynx , making the voice very raspy.

Changes in vocal sounds without other symptoms or identifiable causes may be caused by cancer tumour growth in the chest. The nerve that controls a muscle that abducts (opens) the vocal cords can become compressed by tumours in the chest. This is because it travels down from the skull, into the chest, wrapping under the aorta before returning to supply the larynx.

Studies have shown that between 18% and 24% of people with tumours that are in the chest – but not their larynx – have vocal cord paralysis that causes their voice to change.

Vocal changes happen subtly with ageing, but there are many other causes. Any changes that persist for weeks should be checked by a GP, particularly if there are other symptoms accompanying it.

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Hard Words to Say with a Lisp: How to Work Around Your Speech Disability

Saying hard words is never easy, but it can be especially difficult when you have a speech disability. A lisp is a common speech disability that can make it difficult to pronounce certain sounds. If you have a lisp, don’t worry! There are plenty of ways to work around your speech disability and still communicate effectively with others. In this blog post, we will discuss some strategies that you can use to overcome your lisp and say hard words with ease!

What is a lisp, and how do you know if you have one?

Common causes of lisps, hard words to say with a lisp, how to correct a lisp, when is the best time to seek help for a lisp, how speech therapy can help correct a lisp.

What is a lisp? A l isp is a speech disorder that can make it difficult to say certain words. This disorder can make it difficult to produce the /s/ and /z/ sounds. A lisp is a very common sort of speech impediment.

It does not matter if you find the English language difficult or the Spanish language is harder. But the way you pronounce a difficult word, whether it’s from a native or foreign language, is what involves a lisp. If you are not sure if you have a lisp, there are a few ways that you can check. One way is to say the word “seesaw”. You will most likely say “seesaw” as “seesaow” if you have a lisp. Another way to check is to say the word “lizard”. If you have a lisp, you will most likely say “lizard” as “lidger”. If you think you may have a lisp, it is important to speak with your doctor.

Common causes of this functional speech disorder can include:

• Neurological problems:  Some people may develop a lisp due to a neurological problem, such as a stroke.
• Mouth and teeth problems:  Some people may develop a lisp if they have problems with their mouth or teeth, such as a misaligned jaw. Or they may either have a tongue tie or tongue thrust. Tongue-tie is a condition where the tongue is firmly connected to the floor of the mouth and movement is restricted. Tongue thrust is when the tongue protrudes between the front teeth.
• Speech disorders:  Some people may develop a lisp if they have another speech disorder or learn to pronounce sounds incorrectly.

What Are the Types of Lisps?

There are four professional categories of lisps , as the Speech-Language Pathology Graduate Programs outlines.

A  frontal lisp  is the most common and occurs when individuals push their tongues too far forward.

A  lateral lisp  happens if air moves over the sides of the tongue when speaking, resulting in a slurred sound.

People with  palatal lisps  touch their tongue to the roof of their mouth while saying certain sounds.

Dental lisps  are easily confused with frontal lisps, but these occur with the wrong mouth position; the individual pushes their tongue against the teeth — not through them.

If you have a lisp, it can be difficult to say certain words. Some of the hardest words to say with a lisp include “th” sounds (as in “think”), “s” sounds (as in “see”), and “z” sounds (as in “zoo”). Many people think that a lisp is usually only found in kids before the age of five. By the time they attend school, many would think they wouldn’t have lisp anymore and go on with their everyday lives. But honestly, it can still be present in adults who did not take this speech impediment seriously and did not seek help. If you have difficulty in pronouncing the word with s, z, and th, please consider that you have a lisp.

Here are some hard words to say with a lisp:

• narcissistic
• sixth sense
• statistician
• specificities
• Mississippi

This is just a shortlist of problematic word lisp, and there sure are plenty more speech sound errors that you may find as you continue reading words.

If you have a lisp , there are a few things that you can do to help correct it.

Practice on your own.

One thing is to practice saying the words that are difficult for you. Another thing is to make sure that you are using the right muscles when you speak. You can do this by practicing your speech in front of a mirror.

Seek out a Speech pathologist

They are specialists who can help children with lisps. They will evaluate what type of lisp your child has and then help them with it over a period of time. It can take a few months to a few years to get rid of a lisp. If a child is older when working with a speech-language pathologist, it may take longer.

Frenotomy or frenulopasty

If your child’s lisp is from a tongue-tie, a doctor may recommend a simple in-office procedure called a frenotomy to reduce the tethering. They take a pair of scissors and snip the excess tissue holding the tongue down. If the tongue-tie is more severe, they might require a surgery called frenuloplasty.

Other strategies

Another strategy is to mime the words that you are trying to say. This can help you get the pronunciation correct. You can also try speaking more slowly and enunciating each word clearly.

If you are having difficulty pronouncing certain words, it is best to seek help as soon as possible. The earlier you seek help, the easier it will be to correct the lisp. If you wait too long, the speech muscles may become harder to retrain.

If you have a lisp, speech therapy can help correct it. Speech therapists will evaluate your lisp and give you exercises to help improve your pronunciation. It may take time and effort, but you can overcome your lisp with patience and practice.

Speech pathologists work with people who have lisps to help them recognize what their lisp sounds like and how to position their tongue in the correct place to make the sound. They do this by giving them exercises, like saying specific words or phrases with the sounds in them. Once your child has been working on their lisp for a while, your speech pathologist will engage them in conversation to challenge them to remember proper tongue placement.

Lisps are just one type of speech impediment. There are still others who have difficulty saying short or long words with R, L, D, K, and many more. Now that you know some of the mispronounced words that you need to work on, you can either practice on your own or find professional help to help you pronounce words correctly.

References:

https://www.colgate.com/en-us/oral-health/developmental-disabilities/what-is-a-lisp-and-what-causes-it

https://www.wordnik.com/lists/lispers-nemeses

https://www.webmd.com/children/what-is-a-lisp#091e9c5e8217eb1b-1-4

https://www.wikihow.com/Talk-with-a-Lisp

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Speech Impediment Quotes

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There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words.

The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.

Nothing is a greater impediment to being on good terms with others than being ill at ease with yourself.

I always wanted to be an actor, but with a speech impediment it's kind of tough. I decided to roll the dice and take an acting class, which was very, very nerve-wracking... my stomach would just be in knots.

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.

There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.

There is no longer a single common impediment to blacks emerging in this society.

Despite all the hype about local or green food, the single biggest impediment to wider adoption is not research, programs, organizations, or networking. It is the demonizing and criminalizing of virtually all indigenous and heritage-based food practices.

I had worked so hard for so long that I developed a speech impediment. It happens when I get tired.

I thought Daredevil was kind of cool because he couldn't do anything. I mean, he's blind. It wasn't that he could fly. His major power was an impediment. So I was intrigued. When I took over he was kind of like Spider-Man-lite, but I was able to project a lot of my Catholic imagery onto it. And I'd always wanted to do a crime comic.

Governmental aid is a drawback rather than an assistance, as, although it may facilitate in the routine of artistic production, it is an impediment to the development of true artistic genius.

The extreme sophistication of modern technology - wonderful though its benefits are - is, ironically, an impediment to engaging young people with basics: with learning how things work.

The attack did not succeed as well as I had hoped, no small impediment having been the loss of my right leg.

It is true that the aristocracies seem to have abused their monopoly of legal knowledge and at all events their exclusive possession of the law was a formidable impediment to the success of those popular movements which began to be universal in the western world.

But as far as my work is concerned, I see no impediment, and various advantages, to being deaf.

I like to mumble when I act, 'cause I think it's more realistic. For some reason, the impediment has given me the accent of a Mexican gangster.

No matter how bad things are, they can always be worse. So what if my stroke left me with a speech impediment? Moses had one, and he did all right.

I suffered from a quite severe speech impediment when I was young, and keeping a journal was part of the therapy.

P.E. was my life in school. Without it, I wouldn't be standing here. It gave me confidence when I was an overweight kid with a speech impediment.

When they're standing right in front of you, kings are a kind of speech impediment.

I mean, I'm 6-foot-11, I've got red hair, freckles, I'm a goofy, nerdy-looking guy, I've got a speech impediment-I stutter and stammer all the time-and I'm a Deadhead.

When I heard Puerto Ricans in New York City, it sounded very strange. And the first time I heard someone from Spain, I thought they had a speech impediment!

I was a fat little kid with a speech impediment. I used to get beat up, not just picked on.

The character and the actor in a long-running series slowly become one. I think there must be funny stories about actors who, in the pilot for a TV series, did some weird thing with their eyes, or some speech impediment or something, and the next thing you know, it's eight years later, and they're still doing that freaking gag.

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Jackie Kennedy’s strange, elegant accent, explained by linguists

Why Natalie Portman’s accent in Jackie is spot-on, even though it may sound odd to many people.

by Alex Abad-Santos

The first time Natalie Portman speaks in Jackie , Noah Oppenheim ’s arthouse semi-biopic about former first lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis, is three minutes into the movie. It’s a week after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and a journalist from Life magazine has come to the Kennedys’ home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, to interview her. He offers his condolences.

Portman, a startling amalgam of cheekbones, sharp brows, and a thicket of root beer-colored hair, lets out a breathy, biting rebuke.

“Have you read what they’ve been writing? Krock and Merriman and all the rest?” she snaps, referring to journalists Arthur Krock and Merriman Smith . “Merriman is such a bitter man. It’s been just one week and already they’re treating him like some dusty old artifact, to be shelved away. That’s no way to be remembered.”

Merely reading that line doesn’t do justice to the voice Portman adopted for the role. If you’re not aware of how Jackie Kennedy spoke, listening to Portman’s Jackie is like the tingle of soda in your throat. It often feels familiar, but in certain spots it pops and jumps. The way she lops off the end of “bitter,” the funny hop in “artifact,” the way she rolls through “remembered” — it’s like she’s invented her own unique way of speaking English:

But Portman’s delivery is accurate in the way it captures the former first lady’s affect. And that might be the most impressive element of her Oscar-nominated performance .

Jackie Kennedy will always be an American icon; her style was impossibly chic, her beauty is immortal, and her poise and grace in the aftermath of tragedy will never be forgotten. Embodying any of those characteristics onscreen is no small feat. But it’s Kennedy’s distinctive voice — a peculiar drawl that defies simple linguistic classification — that presents the greatest challenge for any actress who might attempt to imitate her.

Jackie Kennedy spoke like an old-time New Yorker … sort of

When linguists study accents and dialects, they listen for “features” that help differentiate one speaking style or characteristic from the next. In this case, the term refers to how certain words and vowels are pronounced; they are what makes certain accents stand out or sound strange if we’re not used to them. Kennedy’s accent contains several different features, but according to several linguists I spoke to for this story, the most pronounced ones are “non-rhoticity,” which is also called “R-lessness,” and a “split short A system.”

Non-rhoticity is generally heard in Northeast and Southern accents, and particularly in older people who were born before WWII, since it’s a feature they grew up with. In plain English, it’s when someone drops the “R” sound in words like “bar” and “guardian,” pronouncing them “bah” and “gahdian.” A recent pop culture example: Kevin Spacey’s Frank Underwood on the Netflix series House of Cards :

The non-rhoticity feature originated in England, whose different regional dialects display a mix of rhoticity (where people pronounced their words with R’s intact) and non-rhoticity (where people drop their R’s). When different groups of English immigrants settled in the United States in the 1800s and earlier, some brought over the non-rhotic affectation — typically to the metropolitan areas that are now Boston and New York City, as well as the South — and some brought over the rhotic affectation. For a period of time prior to WWII, non-rhoticity was also considered posh or fashionable because of its origins in Britain.

The linguists I spoke with explained that Jackie Kennedy’s accent is at least partially typical of someone with her upbringing, in that it tracks with her early childhood in Southampton in the 1930s but was clearly influenced by going to school in Manhattan and spending a lot of time there growing up.

“You don’t hear some of those stereotypical New York features in her accent, but you do hear that R-lessness,” says Anne Marie Olivo-Shaw, a linguistics PhD who researched and wrote her dissertation on New York City English dialect among different ethnic groups on Long Island, New York.

Olivo-Shaw explained that there are other features heard on Long Island and in New York City like the “cawffee” vowel, and the “e” vowel. The “cawffee” vowel turns the vowel sound in the word “coffee” and similar words into more of aw-sound. The latter turns the word “me” into something closer to “may” or “mae.”

For Olivo-Shaw, the feature of Kennedy’s accent that most stood out was R-lessness.

“She says ‘the cah’ [instead of ‘the car’] and ‘fine ahts’ [instead of ‘fine arts’],” Olivo-Shaw explained.

But there are also curious wrinkles.

“I also noticed that she dropped her R’s in a place where not all New Yorkers do — it’s an extreme place to drop your R’s,” said Kara Becker, an assistant professor of linguistics at Reed College told me. Becker studies the New York City accent.

“It’s when she has an “err” sound that’s stressed in a word. So a word like ‘furniture,’ a lot of people who drop their R’s wouldn’t drop them there, but she did. So you get ‘fuhnituh.’”

The other particularly noticeable feature of Kennedy’s accent is a “split short A system.” Both Becker and Olivo-Shaw defined it as the short A vowel sound changing in words where you’d think it would be similar.

“The split short A system happens across the Northeast, but it’s very specific in different regions. So in New York it happens in words like ‘bat’ versus ‘bad,’ [where ‘bad’ can sound closer to ‘bed’ if there’s a split system],” Olivo-Shaw said. “Kennedy says ‘kehnt’ instead of ‘can’t.’”

You can also hear it in the way Kennedy says the word “back.”

“We [linguists] talk about vowels in where they’re produced in the mouth,” Becker explained, noting that Kennedy has an extreme case of this. “Her tongue is in the back of her mouth when the word ‘back.’”

Try pulling your tongue into the back of your mouth and saying “back” or “pass.” It changes the A vowel sound, so that you make less of an “ack” or “ass” sound; instead, it sounds a bit rounder. If you pull your tongue forward in your mouth, and try it again, it changes the word.

Kennedy’s R-lessness and split short A system are not only regionally specific, but historically specific, because characteristics like R-lessness have slowly faded from New York accents over time. According to linguists, there was a shift around World War II where features like R-lessness started to become less pronounced. Because R-lessness isn’t as common or as conspicuous as it used to be, its presence in Kennedy’s accent can make her sound especially unusual to younger generations.

“So some people might have none of the features of New York City English, but then they might have a split short A system, which is actually pretty common,” Olivo-Shaw said. “And among the younger people, they don’t have as many of the features in general as older generations do.”

Jackie Kennedy was affluent, and her wealth is reflected in the way she speaks

There’s a rule of thumb in linguistics that you tend to see a higher number of pronounced features in working-class people than affluent people. But during Kennedy’s time — from her childhood in the ’30s into her adulthood — upper-class individuals in the Northeast exhibited certain speech patterns, often taught in expensive private schools, that combined elements of British English and American English, resulting in what is sometimes called a “prestige” accent (it’s also known as Mid-Atlantic prestige accent, and colloquially as the “Boston Brahmin” or the “Locust Valley Lockjaw”) .

This accent was characterized by a distinct pronunciation that sounds like a mix between British and American English.

“People in private school, people of a certain social class, that’s the way they talked,” Rebecca Babcock, a professor at University of Texas of the Permian Basin, told me. “It has an upper class, or an upper-crust — they call it an index.”

Babcock is an expert in sociolinguistics, and cites Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Kerry ( in his earlier speeches ) as examples of people who speak with this prestige index, but explains that it has also appeared in pop culture when people want to create a character who appears to be intellectual or well-to-do, like Effie Trinket in The Hunger Games and Stewie from Family Guy .

Babcock says that what stood out to her about Kennedy, in addition to the first lady’s accent, was her grammatical formality. Kennedy, whenever she appeared on television, always sounded very proper, often formalizing her language by saying “one” where most of us would say “you.”

“One has to pay attention to one’s speech to use ‘one,’” Babcock told me, emphasizing the stateliness and perhaps awkwardness of saying “one” in a two-person conversation. “The natural is to say ‘you.’ So that sort of grammar — that’s a careful use of proper grammar.”

But Babcock noted that Kennedy’s adherence to formality wasn’t consistent, and that instead of saying the phrase “going to,” which is what one would expect considering Kennedy’s fondness for proper grammar, Kennedy used the word “gonna.”

“People don’t 100 percent of the time use 100 percent of all the features of whatever dialect they’re speaking,” Babcock said. “It’s variable.”

And Becker connected some of the nuances of Kennedy’s speech, like the way she pronounces “furniture” or splits her A’s, to what she was likely taught as a child and the affluent social circles she was part of.

“One thing she does a lot is aspirate her T’s. If you have a T at the end of a word, most Americans don’t produce a puff of air, but you can. She does this a lot,” Becker said explaining that when Kennedy would say words like “can’t” and “but,” you’d hear a little breath that almost sounds like a split-second gasp or an “uh” sound.

According to Becker, aspirated T’s link Kennedy’s accent more to her affluent background than to a specific place.

Jackie Kennedy was a politician, and politicians often change their accents to match their audience

When Portman was asked how she learned Kennedy’s accent, the actress told the Los Angeles Times that she looked up every interview with Kennedy that she could find on YouTube and watched the first lady’s 1962 White House Tour over and over.

It’s important to note that Kennedy’s White House Tour, as well as much of the archival footage we have of Jackie Kennedy, first aired on broadcast TV. That means that when Kennedy was filming an interview, for example, she would have known that it’d be seen by people all across the country.

As Babcock stated above, no one speaks with 100 percent of their features 100 percent of the time. Humans change the way they speak based on the situation they’re in and who they’re speaking to; think about how some people tend to speak with more of an accent when they visit their hometowns, or the way we sometimes speak differently at work versus at home.

Theoretically, if people shift their vocal patterns based on who they’re speaking to, then a situation where Kennedy was speaking on television would no doubt shift the way she, and other first ladies and politicians, spoke. Political figures, after all, have to convince the people they’re talking to to believe in them and support them, and that’s hard to do if you sound like an outsider.

Politicians fine-tuning their speech for their audiences happens all the time. Barack Obama’s speeches have been analyzed for their cadence , and linguists have examined President Donald Trump’s speaking patterns at length.

If there’s one thing in particular that Jackie wants to convey, it’s that no one knew the power of image in politics like Jackie Kennedy. Quite simply: She knew how to present herself, and that includes how she sounded.

“Jackie’s tone was very quiet, very breathy,” Babcock said (Babcock also explained that her one issue with Portman’s delivery is that she delivers it with a “creaky voice” affectation and less breath). “That is also a cultured way of speaking. And of course that was also taught because a ‘lady’ at that time would speak in a soft, cultured, and very clear way.”

Kennedy was fully aware of how important her public appearances were in terms of how she was perceived. Leaning into certain features of her accent, while mitigating others, could account for the more curious and inconsistent pockets of her speech — like the way she formalizes the “you” by saying “one” instead. And the moments when she does break with formality could be her way of trying to be appear more approachable. While we can’t know for certain how Kennedy made her grammatical choices, Babcock stressed that her public interviews were probably rehearsed backward and forward, and that Kennedy, again like many politicians, was prepped on how to appear.

The linguists I talked to all explained that Kennedy’s accent is something of a rarity today. Back then, it might have been a rarity too, unless you floated in the same upper-crust circles she did.

Today, you may be able to find older New Yorkers and New Englanders who speak with Kennedy’s soft, rolling intonation laced with the prim touches of finishing school. But it won’t be super easy. That’s why younger generations might not be familiar with what she sounded like; to many people, she’s just that glamorous first lady they read about in textbooks. And that’s part of the magic of watching Portman’s performance in Jackie — learning something new about someone we thought we knew. Capturing Kennedy’s voice was an essential part of bringing the movie to life.

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Types of Speech Impediments

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Articulation Errors

Ankyloglossia, treating speech disorders.

A speech impediment, also known as a speech disorder , is a condition that can affect a person’s ability to form sounds and words, making their speech difficult to understand.

Speech disorders generally become evident in early childhood, as children start speaking and learning language. While many children initially have trouble with certain sounds and words, most are able to speak easily by the time they are five years old. However, some speech disorders persist. Approximately 5% of children aged three to 17 in the United States experience speech disorders.

There are many different types of speech impediments, including:

• Articulation errors

This article explores the causes, symptoms, and treatment of the different types of speech disorders.

Speech impediments that break the flow of speech are known as disfluencies. Stuttering is the most common form of disfluency, however there are other types as well.

Symptoms and Characteristics of Disfluencies

These are some of the characteristics of disfluencies:

• Repeating certain phrases, words, or sounds after the age of 4 (For example: “O…orange,” “I like…like orange juice,” “I want…I want orange juice”)
• Adding in extra sounds or words into sentences (For example: “We…uh…went to buy…um…orange juice”)
• Elongating words (For example: Saying “orange joooose” instead of "orange juice")
• Replacing words (For example: “What…Where is the orange juice?”)
• Hesitating while speaking (For example: A long pause while thinking)
• Pausing mid-speech (For example: Stopping abruptly mid-speech, due to lack of airflow, causing no sounds to come out, leading to a tense pause)

In addition, someone with disfluencies may also experience the following symptoms while speaking:

• Vocal tension and strain
• Head jerking
• Eye blinking
• Lip trembling

Causes of Disfluencies

People with disfluencies tend to have neurological differences in areas of the brain that control language processing and coordinate speech, which may be caused by:

• Genetic factors
• Trauma or infection to the brain
• Environmental stressors that cause anxiety or emotional distress
• Neurodevelopmental conditions like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Articulation disorders occur when a person has trouble placing their tongue in the correct position to form certain speech sounds. Lisping is the most common type of articulation disorder.

Symptoms and Characteristics of Articulation Errors

These are some of the characteristics of articulation disorders:

• Substituting one sound for another . People typically have trouble with ‘r’ and ‘l’ sounds. (For example: Being unable to say “rabbit” and saying “wabbit” instead)
• Lisping , which refers specifically to difficulty with ‘s’ and ‘z’ sounds. (For example: Saying “thugar” instead of “sugar” or producing a whistling sound while trying to pronounce these letters)
• Omitting sounds (For example: Saying “coo” instead of “school”)
• Adding sounds (For example: Saying “pinanio” instead of “piano”)
• Making other speech errors that can make it difficult to decipher what the person is saying. For instance, only family members may be able to understand what they’re trying to say.

Causes of Articulation Errors

Articulation errors may be caused by:

• Genetic factors, as it can run in families
• Hearing loss , as mishearing sounds can affect the person’s ability to reproduce the sound
• Changes in the bones or muscles that are needed for speech, including a cleft palate (a hole in the roof of the mouth) and tooth problems
• Damage to the nerves or parts of the brain that coordinate speech, caused by conditions such as cerebral palsy , for instance

Ankyloglossia, also known as tongue-tie, is a condition where the person’s tongue is attached to the bottom of their mouth. This can restrict the tongue’s movement and make it hard for the person to move their tongue.

Symptoms and Characteristics of Ankyloglossia

Ankyloglossia is characterized by difficulty pronouncing ‘d,’ ‘n,’ ‘s,’ ‘t,’ ‘th,’ and ‘z’ sounds that require the person’s tongue to touch the roof of their mouth or their upper teeth, as their tongue may not be able to reach there.

Apart from speech impediments, people with ankyloglossia may also experience other symptoms as a result of their tongue-tie. These symptoms include:

• Difficulty breastfeeding in newborns
• Trouble swallowing
• Limited ability to move the tongue from side to side or stick it out
• Difficulty with activities like playing wind instruments, licking ice cream, or kissing
• Mouth breathing

Causes of Ankyloglossia

Ankyloglossia is a congenital condition, which means it is present from birth. A tissue known as the lingual frenulum attaches the tongue to the base of the mouth. People with ankyloglossia have a shorter lingual frenulum, or it is attached further along their tongue than most people’s.

Dysarthria is a condition where people slur their words because they cannot control the muscles that are required for speech, due to brain, nerve, or organ damage.

Symptoms and Characteristics of Dysarthria

Dysarthria is characterized by:

• Slurred, choppy, or robotic speech
• Rapid, slow, or soft speech
• Breathy, hoarse, or nasal voice

Additionally, someone with dysarthria may also have other symptoms such as difficulty swallowing and inability to move their tongue, lips, or jaw easily.

Causes of Dysarthria

Dysarthria is caused by paralysis or weakness of the speech muscles. The causes of the weakness can vary depending on the type of dysarthria the person has:

• Central dysarthria is caused by brain damage. It may be the result of neuromuscular diseases, such as cerebral palsy, Huntington’s disease, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Central dysarthria may also be caused by injuries or illnesses that damage the brain, such as dementia, stroke, brain tumor, or traumatic brain injury .
• Peripheral dysarthria is caused by damage to the organs involved in speech. It may be caused by congenital structural problems, trauma to the mouth or face, or surgery to the tongue, mouth, head, neck, or voice box.

Apraxia, also known as dyspraxia, verbal apraxia, or apraxia of speech, is a neurological condition that can cause a person to have trouble moving the muscles they need to create sounds or words. The person’s brain knows what they want to say, but is unable to plan and sequence the words accordingly.

Symptoms and Characteristics of Apraxia

These are some of the characteristics of apraxia:

• Distorting sounds: The person may have trouble pronouncing certain sounds, particularly vowels, because they may be unable to move their tongue or jaw in the manner required to produce the right sound. Longer or more complex words may be especially harder to manage.
• Being inconsistent in their speech: For instance, the person may be able to pronounce a word correctly once, but may not be able to repeat it. Or, they may pronounce it correctly today and differently on another day.
• Grasping for words: The person may appear to be searching for the right word or sound, or attempt the pronunciation several times before getting it right.
• Making errors with the rhythm or tone of speech: The person may struggle with using tone and inflection to communicate meaning. For instance, they may not stress any of the words in a sentence, have trouble going from one syllable in a word to another, or pause at an inappropriate part of a sentence.

Causes of Apraxia

Apraxia occurs when nerve pathways in the brain are interrupted, which can make it difficult for the brain to send messages to the organs involved in speaking. The causes of these neurological disturbances can vary depending on the type of apraxia the person has:

• Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS): This condition is present from birth and is often hereditary. A person may be more likely to have it if a biological relative has a learning disability or communication disorder.
• Acquired apraxia of speech (AOS): This condition can occur in adults, due to brain damage as a result of a tumor, head injury , stroke, or other illness that affects the parts of the brain involved in speech.

If you have a speech impediment, or suspect your child might have one, it can be helpful to visit your healthcare provider. Your primary care physician can refer you to a speech-language pathologist, who can evaluate speech, diagnose speech disorders, and recommend treatment options.

The diagnostic process may involve a physical examination as well as psychological, neurological, or hearing tests, in order to confirm the diagnosis and rule out other causes.

Treatment for speech disorders often involves speech therapy, which can help you learn how to move your muscles and position your tongue correctly in order to create specific sounds. It can be quite effective in improving your speech.

Children often grow out of milder speech disorders; however, special education and speech therapy can help with more serious ones.

For ankyloglossia, or tongue-tie, a minor surgery known as a frenectomy can help detach the tongue from the bottom of the mouth.

A Word From Verywell

A speech impediment can make it difficult to pronounce certain sounds, speak clearly, or communicate fluently. 

Living with a speech disorder can be frustrating because people may cut you off while you’re speaking, try to finish your sentences, or treat you differently. It can be helpful to talk to your healthcare providers about how to cope with these situations.

You may also benefit from joining a support group, where you can connect with others living with speech disorders.

National Library of Medicine. Speech disorders . Medline Plus.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Language and speech disorders .

Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Stuttering .

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Quick statistics about voice, speech, and language .

Cleveland Clinic. Speech impediment .

Lee H, Sim H, Lee E, Choi D. Disfluency characteristics of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms . J Commun Disord . 2017;65:54-64. doi:10.1016/j.jcomdis.2016.12.001

Nemours Foundation. Speech problems .

Penn Medicine. Speech and language disorders .

Cleveland Clinic. Tongue-tie .

University of Rochester Medical Center. Ankyloglossia .

Cleveland Clinic. Dysarthria .

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Apraxia of speech .

Cleveland Clinic. Childhood apraxia of speech .

Stanford Children’s Hospital. Speech sound disorders in children .

Abbastabar H, Alizadeh A, Darparesh M, Mohseni S, Roozbeh N. Spatial distribution and the prevalence of speech disorders in the provinces of Iran . J Med Life . 2015;8(Spec Iss 2):99-104.

By Sanjana Gupta Sanjana is a health writer and editor. Her work spans various health-related topics, including mental health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.

Dysarthria (difficulty speaking)

Dysarthria is where you have difficulty speaking because the muscles you use for speech are weak. It can be caused by conditions that damage your brain or nerves and some medicines. Speech and language therapy can help.

Immediate action required: Call 999 if:

• somebody's face droops on 1 side (the mouth or eye may have drooped)
• a person cannot lift up both arms and keep them there
• a person has difficulty speaking (speech may be slurred or garbled)

These can be signs of a stroke, which is a medical emergency. The symptoms of a stroke usually come on suddenly.

Do not drive yourself to A&E.

The person you speak to at 999 will give you advice about what to do.

Check if it's dysarthria

The main symptom of dysarthria is unclear speech. This can make it difficult for you to make yourself understood.

Your speech may only be slightly unclear, or you may not be able to speak clearly at all.

Other symptoms include:

• difficulty moving your mouth, tongue or lips
• slurred or slow speech
• difficulty controlling the volume of your voice, making you talk too loudly or quietly
• a change in your voice, making it nasal, strained or monotone
• hesitating a lot when talking, or speaking in short bursts instead of full sentences

Being stressed or tired may make your symptoms worse.

Dysarthria is not the same as dysphasia, although you can have both conditions at the same time. Dysphasia, also known as aphasia , is where you have difficulty understanding words or putting them together in a sentence.

Non-urgent advice: See a GP if:

• you've noticed gradual changes to your or your child's speech and you're worried

They'll examine you and may refer you to a specialist for further tests.

Causes of dysarthria

Dysarthria is usually caused by damage to the brain or conditions that affect the nervous system. It can happen at any age.

Common causes include:

• stroke , severe head injury and brain tumours
• Parkinson's disease , multiple sclerosis and motor neurone disease
• cerebral palsy and Down's syndrome

It can also be a side effect of certain medicines, such as some medicines to treat epilepsy.

Treatment for dysarthria

If you have dysarthria, you'll usually be referred to a speech and language therapist. They'll offer therapy to help your speech and communication.

The therapy you're offered will be different depending on the cause of your dysarthria and how severe it is.

Some people may find therapy does not help their symptoms, or their speech may get worse as their condition progresses. Their therapy may focus on helping communication in other ways.

Speech and language therapy may include:

• exercises to strengthen the muscles used for speech
• strategies to make your speech easier to understand, such as slowing down when you're talking
• using communication aids, such as an alphabet board or a voice amplifier

Find out more

• Headway: communication problems after brain injury
• Stroke Association: communication tools

Page last reviewed: 17 February 2023 Next review due: 17 February 2026

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Overcoming Speech Impediment: Symptoms to Treatment

There are many causes and solutions for impaired speech

• Types and Symptoms
• Speech Therapy
• Building Confidence

Speech impediments are conditions that can cause a variety of symptoms, such as an inability to understand language or speak with a stable sense of tone, speed, or fluidity. There are many different types of speech impediments, and they can begin during childhood or develop during adulthood.

Common causes include physical trauma, neurological disorders, or anxiety. If you or your child is experiencing signs of a speech impediment, you need to know that these conditions can be diagnosed and treated with professional speech therapy.

This article will discuss what you can do if you are concerned about a speech impediment and what you can expect during your diagnostic process and therapy.

FG Trade / Getty Images

Types and Symptoms of Speech Impediment

People can have speech problems due to developmental conditions that begin to show symptoms during early childhood or as a result of conditions that may occur during adulthood. 

The main classifications of speech impairment are aphasia (difficulty understanding or producing the correct words or phrases) or dysarthria (difficulty enunciating words).

Often, speech problems can be part of neurological or neurodevelopmental disorders that also cause other symptoms, such as multiple sclerosis (MS) or autism spectrum disorder .

There are several different symptoms of speech impediments, and you may experience one or more.

Can Symptoms Worsen?

Most speech disorders cause persistent symptoms and can temporarily get worse when you are tired, anxious, or sick.

Symptoms of dysarthria can include:

• Slurred speech
• Slow speech
• Choppy speech
• Hesitant speech
• Inability to control the volume of your speech
• Shaking or tremulous speech pattern
• Inability to pronounce certain sounds

Symptoms of aphasia may involve:

• Speech apraxia (difficulty coordinating speech)
• Difficulty understanding the meaning of what other people are saying
• Inability to use the correct words
• Inability to repeat words or phases
• Speech that has an irregular rhythm

You can have one or more of these speech patterns as part of your speech impediment, and their combination and frequency will help determine the type and cause of your speech problem.

Causes of Speech Impediment

The conditions that cause speech impediments can include developmental problems that are present from birth, neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s disease , or sudden neurological events, such as a stroke .

Some people can also experience temporary speech impairment due to anxiety, intoxication, medication side effects, postictal state (the time immediately after a seizure), or a change of consciousness.

Speech Impairment in Children

Children can have speech disorders associated with neurodevelopmental problems, which can interfere with speech development. Some childhood neurological or neurodevelopmental disorders may cause a regression (backsliding) of speech skills.

Common causes of childhood speech impediments include:

• Autism spectrum disorder : A neurodevelopmental disorder that affects social and interactive development
• Cerebral palsy :  A congenital (from birth) disorder that affects learning and control of physical movement
• Hearing loss : Can affect the way children hear and imitate speech
• Rett syndrome : A genetic neurodevelopmental condition that causes regression of physical and social skills beginning during the early school-age years.
• Adrenoleukodystrophy : A genetic disorder that causes a decline in motor and cognitive skills beginning during early childhood
• Childhood metabolic disorders : A group of conditions that affects the way children break down nutrients, often resulting in toxic damage to organs
• Brain tumor : A growth that may damage areas of the brain, including those that control speech or language
• Encephalitis : Brain inflammation or infection that may affect the way regions in the brain function
• Hydrocephalus : Excess fluid within the skull, which may develop after brain surgery and can cause brain damage

Do Childhood Speech Disorders Persist?

Speech disorders during childhood can have persistent effects throughout life. Therapy can often help improve speech skills.

Speech Impairment in Adulthood

Adult speech disorders develop due to conditions that damage the speech areas of the brain.

Common causes of adult speech impairment include:

• Head trauma 
• Nerve injury
• Throat tumor
• Stroke 
• Parkinson’s disease 
• Essential tremor
• Brain tumor
• Brain infection

Additionally, people may develop changes in speech with advancing age, even without a specific neurological cause. This can happen due to presbyphonia , which is a change in the volume and control of speech due to declining hormone levels and reduced elasticity and movement of the vocal cords.

Do Speech Disorders Resolve on Their Own?

Children and adults who have persistent speech disorders are unlikely to experience spontaneous improvement without therapy and should seek professional attention.

Steps to Treating Speech Impediment 

If you or your child has a speech impediment, your healthcare providers will work to diagnose the type of speech impediment as well as the underlying condition that caused it. Defining the cause and type of speech impediment will help determine your prognosis and treatment plan.

Sometimes the cause is known before symptoms begin, as is the case with trauma or MS. Impaired speech may first be a symptom of a condition, such as a stroke that causes aphasia as the primary symptom.

The diagnosis will include a comprehensive medical history, physical examination, and a thorough evaluation of speech and language. Diagnostic testing is directed by the medical history and clinical evaluation.

Diagnostic testing may include:

• Brain imaging , such as brain computerized tomography (CT) or magnetic residence imaging (MRI), if there’s concern about a disease process in the brain
• Swallowing evaluation if there’s concern about dysfunction of the muscles in the throat
• Electromyography (EMG) and nerve conduction studies (aka nerve conduction velocity, or NCV) if there’s concern about nerve and muscle damage
• Blood tests, which can help in diagnosing inflammatory disorders or infections

Your diagnostic tests will help pinpoint the cause of your speech problem. Your treatment will include specific therapy to help improve your speech, as well as medication or other interventions to treat the underlying disorder.

For example, if you are diagnosed with MS, you would likely receive disease-modifying therapy to help prevent MS progression. And if you are diagnosed with a brain tumor, you may need surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation to treat the tumor.

Therapy to Address Speech Impediment

Therapy for speech impairment is interactive and directed by a specialist who is experienced in treating speech problems . Sometimes, children receive speech therapy as part of a specialized learning program at school.

The duration and frequency of your speech therapy program depend on the underlying cause of your impediment, your improvement, and approval from your health insurance.

If you or your child has a serious speech problem, you may qualify for speech therapy. Working with your therapist can help you build confidence, particularly as you begin to see improvement.

Exercises during speech therapy may include:

• Pronouncing individual sounds, such as la la la or da da da
• Practicing pronunciation of words that you have trouble pronouncing
• Adjusting the rate or volume of your speech
• Mouth exercises
• Practicing language skills by naming objects or repeating what the therapist is saying

These therapies are meant to help achieve more fluent and understandable speech as well as an increased comfort level with speech and language.

Building Confidence With Speech Problems 

Some types of speech impairment might not qualify for therapy. If you have speech difficulties due to anxiety or a social phobia or if you don’t have access to therapy, you might benefit from activities that can help you practice your speech. 

You might consider one or more of the following for you or your child:

• Joining a local theater group
• Volunteering in a school or community activity that involves interaction with the public
• Signing up for a class that requires a significant amount of class participation
• Joining a support group for people who have problems with speech

Activities that you do on your own to improve your confidence with speaking can be most beneficial when you are in a non-judgmental and safe space.

Many different types of speech problems can affect children and adults. Some of these are congenital (present from birth), while others are acquired due to health conditions, medication side effects, substances, or mood and anxiety disorders. Because there are so many different types of speech problems, seeking a medical diagnosis so you can get the right therapy for your specific disorder is crucial.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Language and speech disorders in children .

Han C, Tang J, Tang B, et al. The effectiveness and safety of noninvasive brain stimulation technology combined with speech training on aphasia after stroke: a systematic review and meta-analysis . Medicine (Baltimore). 2024;103(2):e36880. doi:10.1097/MD.0000000000036880

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Quick statistics about voice, speech, language .

Mackey J, McCulloch H, Scheiner G, et al. Speech pathologists' perspectives on the use of augmentative and alternative communication devices with people with acquired brain injury and reflections from lived experience . Brain Impair. 2023;24(2):168-184. doi:10.1017/BrImp.2023.9

Allison KM, Doherty KM. Relation of speech-language profile and communication modality to participation of children with cerebral palsy . Am J Speech Lang Pathol . 2024:1-11. doi:10.1044/2023_AJSLP-23-00267

Saccente-Kennedy B, Gillies F, Desjardins M, et al. A systematic review of speech-language pathology interventions for presbyphonia using the rehabilitation treatment specification system . J Voice. 2024:S0892-1997(23)00396-X. doi:10.1016/j.jvoice.2023.12.010

By Heidi Moawad, MD Dr. Moawad is a neurologist and expert in brain health. She regularly writes and edits health content for medical books and publications.

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Saltier Than Crait is a place for Star Wars fans to engage in conversations about the current state of the franchise.

Why is it okay to make fun of someone with a speech impediment?

DJ (Benicio Del Toro's character) is played with this very silly stereotypical stutter. I never found it funny but it did seem like it was played for comedy. Why is that okay? As someone who has struggled with a stutter all their life I always hate depictions of stutterers because it's never really accurate to how the impediment really is, it's always this Porky Pig bullshit.

The only accurate representation of it in film is the King's Speech. And if you want to know how terrible it is to have a stutter that film does a good job of exemplifying that and how much work one has to put in to deal with it. It's also something that I don't think a lot of people understand. Not being able to communicate properly is a huge detriment. Not to mention every fucking person seems to think its goddamn hilarious. You get interrupted all the time if you get stuck on a word. So making fun of people with this impediment is just lazy humor and on par with other stereotypes. I doubt Star Wars would make fun of someone born with a deformity or something like that. So why is making fun of someone with a stutter okay?

It's just something that to me felt really beneath Star Wars in terms of comedy. It's like South Park or Family Guy type humor and just feels really mean spirited and more of Rian punching down. I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone bring this up.

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• breynolds430
• Nov 1, 2023

Common Types Of Speech Impediments Explained

Updated: Dec 1, 2023

Speech impediments—a phrase is often thrown but hardly understood. They aren't character flaws or something to brush off lightly. Communication issues can make life tough for people who deal with them daily. Understanding speech impediment issues helps us show empathy and support for those with them.

Remember, living with a speech impediment isn't a choice—cope or conquer it is. As we learn more, we understand they are more than stutters or lisps. They're silent battles fought every day. This is an opportunity for us to lend support through enhanced understanding and shared respect.

In our daily interactions, we can make a significant impact. We can do this by listening, respecting their struggles, and appreciating their courage. Remember, understanding is the cradle of support. We learn, we grow, and together, we conquer.

Understanding Speech Impediments

Speech impediments involve troubles with voice or actual speech sounds—consonants, vowels, or both. They interfere with one's ability to communicate or articulate thoughts effectively. Some pose a significant hurdle socially, academically, or occupationally. To better support and relate to those with speech impediments, it helps to understand the different types and levels of challenges they face.

Navigating Stutters

Stutters usually stir up visual imagery of duplicated words or parts of words. However, stuttering is more complicated. It also includes longer sounds and pauses that disrupt speech fluency. You'll witness people begging for that elusive word to go off the tip of the tongue.

But what's the culprit? The answer is neurological. The brain and muscles working together for speech are not synchronized. People who stutter know what they want to say but need help to speak fluently.

Decoding Lisps

A lisp is another everyday speech impediment. The infliction is primarily with the letters S and Z. People with a lisp pronounce these sounds as "th." Witness someone say "thun" instead of Sun? That's a lisp playing its mischief.

Lisps originate from incorrect tongue placements in the mouth. If your tongue hits the front teeth when saying S and Z, that's called a lisp.

Apraxia of speech is another form of speech impediment and is quite nasty in its play. Apraxia of speech is different from stutters or lisps. Instead, it's an issue with the motor skill programming involved in speech.

People with apraxia struggle to coordinate the speech muscles in their brains. They understand the language perfectly and know what they wish to say. But the necessary complex motor movements evade them, disrupting smooth speech.

Another impediment to consider is dysarthria, resulting from nerve or muscle damage. It hinders speaking when these parts don't work well. Controlling the tongue and managing breath becomes difficult.

Dysarthria is different from stuttering. It needs help struggling to form words correctly. Dysarthria patients know what to say but struggle to say the words physically.

Phonological Disorders

This speech problem depends on knowing and using speech sound rules. Typically, younger children grapple with such issues while learning language rules. But when these problems persist and impact intelligibility, it's labeled a phonological disorder.

Individuals struggling with phonological disorders encounter set sound patterns they seemingly can't break. To outsiders, pronunciation errors may come across as child-like talk. But in reality, it's a complex issue requiring professional attention.

Selective Mutism

Selective mutism is when someone struggles to speak in specific social situations while being acceptable to others. It's often linked to shyness or social anxiety. Selective mutism usually begins in childhood and is often connected to extreme shyness or social anxiety.

Selective mutism can disrupt learning in school due to its impact on communication. In certain situations, someone with selective mutism can't speak due to anxiety, even if they know how to use language.

Vocal Cord Paralysis

Vocal cord paralysis is a speech problem caused by nerve damage from surgery, accidents, strokes, or tumors. The result? Difficulty in swallowing and even breathing. Speech production is severely affected when the vocal cords do not open and close smoothly.

People with vocal cord paralysis often have a hoarse or whispered speech. The pitch could be too high or low, making it easier to transition between pitches. But safety is also a concern due to difficulty swallowing, leading to recurring pneumonia and lung problems.

Articulation and Phonological Troubles

Finally, we touch on speech sound disorders, comprising articulation and phonological disorders. People with articulation disorders struggle to produce certain sounds, which makes their words hard to understand. Sounds are often switched or left out, making it harder to understand each other.

Phonological disorders, as we've discussed, relate to predictable, regular patterns of sound errors. Children with phonological disorders often substitute sounds made at the back of the mouth, such as "k" and "g," with front-mouth sounds like "t" and "d." In such cases, 'cat' might become 'tat,' and 'game' turns into 'dame.'

They learn sound patterns while learning language rules but don't stop using them as they age. This pattern then molds into a phonological disorder, impacting clear communication.