Motor speech disorders are a class of
speech disorder that disturb the body's natural ability to
speak. These disturbances vary in their
etiology based on the integrity and integration of cognitive, neuromuscular, and
musculoskeletal activities. Speaking is an act dependent on thought and timed execution of airflow and oral motor / oral placement of the
lips,
tongue, and
jaw that can be disrupted by weakness in oral musculature (
dysarthria) or an inability to execute the motor movements needed for specific speech sound production (
apraxia of speech or
developmental verbal dyspraxia). Such deficits can be related to pathology of the nervous system (central and /or peripheral systems involved in motor planning) that affect the timing of respiration, phonation, prosody, and articulation in isolation or in conjunction.