Not Medical Advice: Steroids can have many side effects to a body, but giving you a lisp is not one of them.
Don't confuse anabolic steroids with corticosteroids, warns physiatrist Kenneth Mautner, MD, of Emory University. Anabolic steroids are used to build up muscle. Corticosteroids are used to dampen overactive immune responses and reduce swelling.
The anabolic steroids abused by athletes are synthetic versions of testosterone, a male hormone. Both men and women naturally produce testosterone. But like all hormones -- which regulate the body's most basic functions -- throwing one's testosterone out of balance can have wide-ranging consequences.
Find out Why Steroids Are Bad for You at WebMD.
According to Caroline Bowen, a speech-language pathologist, a lisp is a Functional Speech Disorder (FSD), and a functional speech disorder is a difficulty learning to make a specific speech sound, or a few specific speech sounds.
The word 'functional' means that the cause of the disorder is not known. Indeed, in some literature FSDs are referred to as 'speech delay of unknown origin' or 'speech disorder of unknown origin'.
Functional speech disorders, or speech delays of unknown origin, may persist into adolescence and adulthood as 'residual errors'. They can be treated successfully, by an SLP/SLT in motivated children and adults (for more about adults scroll down to see the section towards the end of this page).
Historically, FSDs were referred to as 'dyslalia' and within that category, difficulty saying /s/ and /z/ was called 'sigmatism'. These outdated terms are no longer used by SLPs/SLTs.