Apraxia of Speech in Children
Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder, in which the brain has difficulty communicating with the mouth, rendering the child an ineffective speaker. In most cases, children with CAS have not learned to coordinate the muscle movements of the tongue, lips, jaw, and/or palate, which are necessary for speech. This disorder can be especially frustrating for children because they know what they want to say, but they literally do not know how to say it.
Apraxia Symptoms
You should consult a speech-language pathologist if your child displays one or more of the following symptoms:
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Little to no babbling at infancy
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Frustration when attempting to speak
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Pointing and gesturing more often than usual
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Making inconsistent sound errors
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Showing difficulty imitating speech
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Stressing the wrong word or syllable
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Is hard to understand [relative to his/her age]
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Has a wide gap between receptive language abilities and expressive abilities*
* A discrepancy in a child’s ability to understand language and his/her ability to speak is a symptom of CAS, however several other language disorders can cause this pattern as well.
In typical speech development, when children learn words and syllables they store speech motor programs in their brains, which they can access when they need to remember how to say something. For reasons not yet known, children with CAS either have problems creating these programs or problems accessing them. As a result, even if they have said a word correctly, they might not be able to say it again.
CAS is certainly a treatable disorder, though depending on its severity, it can require intensive treatment with a speech-language pathologist. The therapy mainly focuses on planning and coordinating the muscle movements for speech. Exercises using melody and rhythm and the repetition of speech sounds can be especially effective. Because testing for CAS requires the patient to be attentive and able to follow directions, a diagnosis, typically can not be made until a child is at least two or three years of age.
