Apraxia
Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder, often referred to as developmental apraxia, verbal apraxia, or speech apraxia. Apraxia (CAS) is characterized by deficits in the ability to plan, coordinate, and sequence motor movements of the jaw, lips, and tongue in order to produce speech sounds. Apraxia (CAS) affects a child's ability to produce speech sounds, syllables, words, and sentences. Speech sound errors increase as words/phrases become more complex. Children with apraxia know what they want to say, but their brain has difficulty planning and coordinating the correct movements in order to produce their thoughts. As a child becomes aware that their speech is not understood by others, frustration may occur.
Red Flags of Apraxia
- Limited use of vowels and/or consonants
- Difficulty imitating what another person says
- Inconsistent, variable products of sounds and words (they say it once and you don't hear it again)
- Omission of syllables or parts of words
- Intelligibility is drastically affected by speech sound errors
- Understands language much better than he/she uses it
- Groping may occur (mouth opens, but no sound comes out)
If you have concerns that your child may have Apraxia, contact a licensed speech therapist to set up an evaluation. A speech therapist can help determine the root cause of the speech sound delays. Recommendations will be made based on the findings of the speech-language evaluation.
Children with Apraxia may have other deficits affecting their speech and communication skills. Motor planning deficits and/or Dyspraxia may co-exist with Apraxia. Children may exhibit delays in their gross motor skill development, have difficulty with play schemes, problem solving, and may also exhibit emotional variability/sensitivity. If any of these deficits co-exist with apraxia, it is recommended your child receive a physical and/or occupational therapy evaluation. In our experience, children with motor speech disorders make quicker progress when other motor areas are addressed simultaneously.
