Speech Disorders

CLINICAL DIAGNOSTIC MANUAL

Speech disorders encompass a wide range of problems affecting a person’s ability to communicate verbally. These can manifest as difficulties in producing sounds, forming words, constructing sentences, or understanding spoken language.

The causes can vary from hearing problems to brain injuries affecting the areas responsible for language and speech. Proper evaluation of these disorders requires a combination of detailed medical history, physical examination, and specific complementary tests.

Condition	Clinical Symptoms and Signs	Suspected Diagnosis	Confirmatory Diagnosis
Deafness	Inability to hear sounds, lack of response to auditory stimuli	History of hearing loss, hearing tests	Audiometry showing significant hearing loss
Deafness secondary to 8th cranial nerve injury	Unilateral hearing loss, tinnitus, dizziness	History of trauma, infections, or tumours in the area of the eighth cranial nerve	Audiometry, MRI or CT showing vestibulocochlear nerve injury
Inattention (dementia, depression)	Reduced ability to concentrate, difficulties in verbal communication	History of progressive cognitive decline or depressive symptoms	Neuropsychological evaluation, DSM-5 criteria for depression or dementia
Sensory dysphasia (Wernicke’s area lesion)	Difficulty understanding spoken language, fluent but incoherent speech	History of stroke or temporal lobe injury	MRI or CT showing lesion in Wernicke’s area
Motor dysphasia (dominant frontotemporal lobe lesion)	Difficulty forming coherent words and sentences, non-fluent speech	History of stroke or frontotemporal lobe injury	MRI or CT showing lesion in Broca’s area
Dysarthria	Slow, laborious speech, difficulty articulating sounds	History of neurological diseases such as Parkinsonism or multiple sclerosis	Clinical evaluation, motor function tests, MRI or CT if underlying cause is suspected
Dysphonia due to vocal cord disorder	Changes in voice quality, hoarse or nasal voice	History of excessive voice use, infections, or trauma	Laryngoscopy, videostroboscopy