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Writing Question

Writing characters with disabilities?

I have a character with Ataxic Cerebral Palsy, so a big part that will stand out is her speech. I don't know how I should write that; should I write the dialogue the way it sounds when she speaks? (I'm afraid this would be hard for readers to figure out what she's saying, and I'm afraid it'd be offensive for some?) The disability is a big part of the story, so I need to emphasize it, but I don't know exactly how to do that? Any help/advice would be helpful. Also, if you ever wrote a character with any kind of disability, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks for the help.
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Wait what kind of speech impediment is it? Like a stutter or lisp?
LaDispute posted over a year ago
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It's more of an articulation impediment, with exaggerated mouth movements. People with ataxic cp have a hard time pronouncing words; and I hate describing it like this but I guess it's similar to way a three year old would try to speak? It just sounds off and can be hard to understand sometimes.
para-scence posted over a year ago
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maybe add stresses to certain syllables??? oi see how it'd be difficult to write exaggerated mouth movements.
EvanlovesAzula posted over a year ago
 para-scence posted over a year ago
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Writing Answers

EvanlovesAzula said:
Try to really think about a time when maybe you met or talked to someone w/ the disease. If you haven't, try to research speech patterns of people with the disorder. If you find that it is just hard to make that really come across to a reader, than find a clever way to address or bring up the fact that thus character suffers from it. Also, I think that using the correct description words would help also. The physical description of this person as well as how they move can be very effective in conveying a speech impediment or disorder.
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posted over a year ago 
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