What a scary word. I am online now processing and understanding what that means. I know it can be severe, but can be a moderate as well.
I'll share with you what I've learned here.
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What is it?
Childhood Apraxia of Speech is a deficit in the ability to plan the motor movements for speech and is considered an oral motor planning disorder. Children with CAS have difficulties transmitting the speech message from their brain to their mouths.
Symptoms:
What is often seen in a child with apraxia of speech is a wide gap between their receptive language abilities and expressive abilities. In other words, the child's ability to understand language (receptive ability) is broadly within normal limits, but his or her expressive speech is seriously deficient, absent, or severely unclear....
Diagnosis:
However, certain language disorders may also cause a similar pattern in a child. A gap between a child's expressive and receptive language ability is insufficient to diagnose apraxia...
A differential diagnosis is when there is enough information to state that the child’s skills “fit” with a specific speech/language disorder.
Treatment:
There is no one "program" that is right for every child with apraxia of speech.What experienced therapists and families report is that children with apraxia need frequent one-on-one therapy and lots of repetition of sounds, sound sequences, and movement patterns in order to incorporate them and make them automatic.
In addition, many therapists recommend the use of sign language, picture books, and other means to augment speech in the child who is not clearly understood. This approach may be called "total communication." Having the child pair a vocal word attempt with a sign enhances the chance that the listener will be able to "catch" the communication (if the spoken word isn't understood, perhaps the sign will be). Having others understand the communication can offer the child motivation and the feeling of success in using their voice to communicate.
Many children with apraxia of speech, even at young ages, have some awareness of their difficulty. Providing successful communication experiences only encourages the child. Also, for children with apraxia of speech, signs can become important visual cues to help them know how to place their mouths, etc. in order to produce the desired word. When pairing of spoken word and sign is consistent, the child may come to associate the visual image of the sign with the placement of their articulators.
For children who have CAS, therapy should address the movement patterns in syllables, progressing from the simple (one-syllable words with similar sounds at the beginning and end, like "pop" "mom" and "cake") to the complex (multi-syllabic words with many different sounds).
Results
SLP’s report that most children with CAS, with appropriate help, eventually learn to speak clearly.
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