Apraxia/Dyspraxia
Verbal apraxia of speech is a speech disorder that interferes with the
child's ability to produce sounds, syllables and words. The child has
difficulty sequencing sounds to produce meaningful speech. Generally,
it is not considered a weakness of the muscles, but the difficulty
with consistently positioning the tongue, lips and jaw to effectively
make the desired sounds. The area of the brain that tells the muscles
how to move and what to do to make a particular sound or word is deficient.
This makes "motor planning" difficult for obtaining a word. As a result,
even though the child knows what to say, he cannot say it with consistency,
at a desired time. At times, he can't even begin to say it and either
a wrong sound comes out or sounds are deleted throughout the word.
These errors are not voluntary. At times during situations when the
child is angry or when playing alone, the previously attempted word
may be heard. However if asked to say it again, difficulty generally
occurs. This can be extremely frustrating for the client as well as
the parent. If this describes your child, an experienced speech pathologist
should be consulted and an evaluation should be scheduled.
What is Oral Apraxia?
Oral apraxia is the child's inability to voluntarily make isolated movements
with his/her mouth when asked to do so. Inability to consistently "open
mouth, close mouth, elevate tongue, lateralize tongue, purse lips and
retract lips. If these difficulties occur, it doesn't necessarily mean
that your child as a form of apraxia. If your child is difficult to understand
and any of these difficulties occur, it is imperative that you contact
a qualified speech pathologist, who is experienced in working with a
child with this type of difficulty.
How Do I Know If My Child Has Apraxia?
Inconsistency with producing sounds and words is typical with children
with apraxia. Words which contain a variety of consonant vowel combinations
may be difficult. As the length of the word increases, or the length
of the phrase, intelligibility reduces. For older children, characteristics
include word retrieval deficits and difficulty learning written language
(sequencing written language). Reading and spelling may be problematic
as the child gets into elementary school and at times, motor planning
difficulties may occur with fine motor tasks such as coloring, cutting
and writing. |
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