Childhood Apraxia of Speech
Since beginning this blog, I have had several requests from both therapists and parents regarding information on CAS or Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Throughout my years of practicing speech therapy, I have found that this can be one of the most difficult disorders to treat, especially with young children (children under 3 years old). In addition, we as therapists are often pressured by a lack of time, support and/or resources, which can also make this disorder that much more daunting.
In order to keep today's post has factual as possible, I am using ASHA's published statement on CAS to guide my discussion. You can link onto ASHA's direct statement here: http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/ChildhoodApraxia.htm#signs.
ASHA defines Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) as the following:
"CAS is a motor speech disorder. Children with CAS have problems saying sounds, syllables, and words. This is not because of muscle weakness or paralysis. The brain has problems planning to move the body parts (e.g., lips, jaw, tongue) needed for speech. The child knows what he or she wants to say, but his/her brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say those words."
ASHA's statement continues discussing the signs and symptoms of childhood apraxia, how the disorder can be diagnosed, the treatments that are recommended and three other organizations that have information about this motor speech disorder. Here are links to those three (the first one was also featured on my post from 12/2/08):
In addition to presenting the clinical side of apraxia, I wanted to also share two personal blogs that I found. Both blogs are narrated by moms with sons diagnosed with apraxia. Both explore the factual as well as the often emotional side of apraxia. Both also offer a comprehensive list of favorite links and resources, such as the books, The Late Talker as well as Easy Does It For Apraxia- Preschool (I have used both and love them!). You can access these blogs here:
Thank you for reading today's post. I hope you found it useful. My goal was to give readers a solid overview of apraxia and a substantial list of resources to help people find the support they are looking for, whether it be factual, emotional or both. In follow-up posts I will be discussing the different therapies (both traditional and non-traditional) that exist to treat apraxia.
I welcome your comments and feedback and would love to hear about the techniques you have used that have proven to be successful when treating apraxia!