Dysarthria is when the muscles we use for speech are weak or the individual is having difficulty controlling them. Dysarthria often causes slurred or slow rate of speech and can impact the clarity of speech.
Some of the ways it can negatively impact speech include reduced clarity of sounds and words; a change in speech rate; reduced speech volume and poor breath support. Speech can be difficult to understand at single sound level, single word level, sentence level or conversational level, which often leads to miscommunications and frustration for the person with dysarthria.
Direct therapy can be very helpful to educate individuals on clearer speech strategies and practicing such strategies so that they are able to gradually start to implement them into spontaneous speech.
One group of such strategies are ‘SLOP’ strategies. ‘SLOP’ might sound like a silly or unnatural way to improve the clarity of your speech, but keep reading.
SLOP is an acronym which stands for: Slow, Loud, Over-articulate, Pause.
SLOW – Slowing speech down can help with intelligibility. An increased speech rate often makes it difficult for the listener to understand, this can have an even bigger impact on someone who has an array of issues impacting the clarity of their speech. So, remember to slow right down when speaking. It can help to practice this using poetry, books, pacing boards or by tapping each syllable out on your finger as you speak.
LOUD – Increasing the volume of your speech can help to make it clearer and more intelligible. Using a decibelometer app on a smart device, such as Voice Tools or Speech Analytics can be very helpful.
OVER-ARTICULATE – Exaggerating each word when speaking helps to improve the clarity of speech, especially with individuals who slur their speech. Focus on really pushing your articulators together when speaking e.g. pushing your tongue behind your teeth when saying “today”.
PAUSE – Pausing is very important in speech. It allows us to stop for a breath, or think about what we are saying. If someone struggles with their speech, the tendency is to rush through it as quickly as possible, but this dramatically affects the intelligibility and therefore, they may have to repeat themselves anyway. Pausing is helpful for the person speak as well as for the listener. It gives the person speaking extra time to implement SLOP strategies and gives the listener time to really tune in to the person’s speech. Using poetry is great for working on pausing to practice pausing when is most natural.
The SLOP acronym acts as a visual reminder to those who are attempting to implement the above strategies into their spontaneous speech.
If you’d like a free copy of our SLOP strategies worksheet, don’t hesitate to get in touch via the contact form on our website.
If you feel you or anyone you know would benefit from our input with regards to speech difficulties such as dysarthria, do not hesitate to contact us by following the link below:
