What is Apraxia?

What is Childhood Apraxia of Speech?

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is sometimes called verbal apraxia or developmental apraxia. CAS is a motor speech disorder that prevents a child from being able to move their lips, tongue, or jaw muscles in the right way to form correct sounds or words, even though their muscles are not weak. Sometimes, a child with CAS might not be able to talk much at all. In order to speak, our brains need to send our mouths messages to tell the muscles how and when to move to make sounds and words. When a child has CAS, the messages do not get through to the muscles correctly.

It’s very important to remember that a child with CAS knows what they want to say. The problem is with how the brain tells the mouth, lips, and jaw muscles to move. The problem is not how the child thinks. Children with CAS are not, all the same, some children may have a few signs/symptoms and some children may have all the signs/symptoms. A few signs and symptoms of CAS are as follows:

• Was a quiet infant with limited vocal play;
• A limited number of consonant sounds when beginning to talk;
• May have developed their own gestures and ways to communicate other than words;
• Understanding of language far exceeds expressive language skills;
• Distorts or changes speech sounds;
• If talking, does not say words the same way every time;
• More errors with longer speech utterances.

Children with CAS often struggle in other areas as well. Some of these areas could include:

• Difficulty with feeding skills;
• Difficulty with fine motor skills;
• Difficulty with balance and/or coordination;
• Difficulty with reading, spelling, and/or writing.

If you are concerned that your child may have CAS, speak to your pediatrician and contact an SLP can do an assessment. An SLP will look at your child’s expressive and receptive language skills, their oral-motor skills, speech intonation, and how they say different sounds. We at Therapy Innovations have SLPs that are trained in working with children who have CAS and we can help you.

For more information on Childhood Apraxia of Speech, please watch this video from the Mayo Clinic.