Key takeaways

  • Speech recovery after a stroke often begins within weeks, with the most significant improvements typically observed in the initial 2 to 6 months of therapy.
  • Speech therapy is crucial for regaining communication skills. Treatment plans are customized to address individual symptoms and goals, utilizing various techniques to improve pronunciation, language comprehension, and word formation.
  • While many people make substantial progress, the extent and duration of speech recovery are highly personal, influenced by factors like stroke severity and consistent therapy, with some experiencing long-term difficulties.

The difficulties you experience after a stroke can range from mild to severe, and the exact symptoms can vary from person to person.

Speech-related complications, such as aphasia, dysarthria, and apraxia, are very common, affecting over 1 in 2 people who have a stroke.

Speech impairment can significantly impact your social, mental, and physical well-being. However, a speech-language pathologist can help develop a treatment plan to recover your speech.

In many cases, speech can start to recover within several months after experiencing a stroke. Keep reading to learn more about the stroke speech recovery timeline and what you may expect.

Many people make significant progress in the first few weeks after experiencing a stroke.

The first 2 to 6 weeks, in particular, are the most important for post-stroke speech recovery, as this is when your brain is most actively recovering. This is generally when progress jumps are made.

These improvements may continue steadily for 3 to 6 months of treatment. After this time, recovery typically plateaus, but slow recovery can continue over the course of your life.

It’s important to note that the exact time to recovery depends on several factors. The most crucial factors are the stroke’s severity and its impact on your speech, followed by your treatment plan.

While people are able to make progress in a matter of weeks after a stroke, others have speech difficulties for years. Like many post-stroke challenges, the road to language recovery is highly individual. Your speech-language pathologist can give you a better idea of how long your path might take.

A speech-language pathologist will be your primary treatment professional for speech difficulties after a stroke. They’ll develop a treatment plan based on your specific symptoms, needs, and goals.

Some therapies may focus more on the physical aspects of speech, such as word pronunciation, clarity, and loudness, while others focus more on neurocognition, memory, and language modeling.

Treatments will be therapy-based and will be structured around you. Common treatment options include:

  • Programmed stimulation: This therapy technique uses sensory aids such as music and pictures to help build verbal communication skills.
  • Cognitive linguistic therapy: This technique uses emotional responses to language to strengthen language comprehension.
  • Promoting Aphasic’s Communicative Effectiveness (PACE): PACE is a conversation-based model that uses pictures as prompts to build communication.
  • Stimulation-facilitation therapy: This technique helps people who’ve experienced a stroke relearn word meaning and grammar.
  • Group therapy: In group therapy, people experiencing speech difficulties can come together to practice the skills they’re developing in treatment and support one another.
  • Family therapy: Family therapy allows people who’ve experienced strokes and their family members and caregivers to build communication skills under the guidance of a speech-language pathologist.

A stroke can impact your ability to speak and communicate in several ways, which are all linked to how the stroke affects the parts of your brain that control speech and language.

The three most common speech complications associated with stroke are dysarthria, aphasia, and apraxia.

Dysarthria is a motor speech disorder characterized by slurred or difficult-to-understand speech. It’s caused by structural and muscular changes in the jaw, tongue, or lips resulting from neurological damage. Around 1 in 2 people who have a stroke experience dysarthria.

Aphasia occurs when damage to certain parts of the brain affects your ability to formulate, speak, or understand language. It affects up to 40% of people who have a stroke.

Lastly, a stroke can cause apraxia, which is difficulty moving the muscles in your face.

About 1 in 3 people who experience a stroke experience lasting speech difficulties. Symptoms can be mild or severe and vary from person to person. Common symptoms include difficulty with:

  • speaking
  • using complete sentences
  • using correct grammar
  • finding the right words to express your meaning
  • forming words
  • forming certain sounds

Aphasia, dysarthria, and apraxia can all be treated by a speech-language pathologist.

Speech difficulties after a stroke are generally diagnosed by a speech-language pathologist, a medical professional who specializes in helping people with communication, language, and swallowing difficulties.

A speech-language pathologist can perform an assessment to diagnose speech difficulties after a stroke. This may include oral questions to assess for any speech or cognitive difficulties.

This will let you and the speech-language pathologist know exactly how much the stroke has affected your speech, and it will help them start to create a treatment plan.

It’s difficult to predict the exact symptoms someone will experience after a stroke. Many factors that can affect symptom severity, such as the time before treatment, can’t be predicted in advance.

Additionally, there’s currently no way to say who is more likely to experience speech difficulties or any other specific stroke symptom. However, there are many known risk factors for strokes. Some of these include:

No. In fact, for many people, this is part of what makes speech difficulties after a stroke especially frustrating. People who’ve experienced a stroke often know exactly what they’re trying to communicate, but are not able to get the words out the way they’d like. 

Yes, some people can make a full speech recovery after experiencing a stroke. However, up to 1 in 3 people who recover from a stroke experience some level of permanent speech difficulty. Keep in mind that in some cases, this might be very minor.

A speech-language pathologist can help you find the right tools to communicate while you work on regaining your speech. Various tools and aids are available, ranging from smartphone apps to printable booklets.

A stroke can affect your ability to communicate. A speech-language pathologist can help you regain that ability through a variety of treatment therapies. Speech therapy will rebuild your communication and language skills.

Often, significant progress is made during the first few weeks of treatment and continues for the next few months.

However, the path to recovery is highly individual and difficult to predict. Some people experience slow recovery that takes years, and not everyone who experiences a stroke fully regains their speech.

Your speech-language pathologist can discuss your recovery timeline and treatment plan with you.