Psychological Stress and Speech Disorders

Psychological distress can be defined as an unpleasant condition that can have undesirable effects on a person’s functioning, usually including symptoms that are worrying and unsettling, such as [Page 1515]anger, irritability, confusion, elevated anxiety, and depressive mood, while a disorder is defined as a condition in which disruption occurs to typical physical or mental function. According to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, a speech disorder occurs when a person is not able to speak correctly or fluently or has problems with his or her voice. This is opposed to a language disorder, where a person has trouble understanding others due, for instance, to neural damage following a stroke. A speech disorder therefore occurs when typical speech is disrupted. Speech disorders include disruption to articulation (e.g., ...