- my iParenting
- quick clicks
- babies today articles
- babies today q&a
- toddlers today articles
- toddlers today q&a
- breastfeed.com articles
- breastfeed.com q&a
- message boards
- research baby names
- prepare a birth plan
- content channels
- ip channel rss feeds
- read birth stories
- read parenting stories
- recommended books
- e-newsletters
- safety recalls
- ip diaries
- ip store
- mom of the month
- dad of the month
- editor's letter
- letters to the editor
 |
- e-newsletters
- Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters
- award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Childhood Apraxia of Speech
Identifying This Speech Disorder in Very Young Children
By Mindy Hudon, Speech-Language Pathologist
The ability to speak is a fascinating phenomenon. We never really think of how amazing it is that we actually learn to talk. In most situations, we never need to think about speech development because it just happens naturally. The ability to speak is an intricate masterpiece that requires precisely sequenced motor movements in the mouth to form sounds and these sounds form words. Sometimes, this orchestrated process can break down, creating havoc in the natural order of development. The result is a speech sound disorder.
There are various types of speech sound disorders that children can demonstrate. A developmental speech delay occurs when a child is developing speech at a much slower rate than typically developing children. These children often speak with distorted or substituted sounds (i.e., "sobel" for "shovel" or "wabbit" for "rabbit"). Once they learn how to produce these sounds correctly, they are usually able to say words without difficulty.
Another more complicated speech disorder is Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS). CAS is a motor speech disorder that also impacts a child's ability to acquire speech at a normal rate. Children with CAS have difficulty planning and producing the specific motor movements needed to pronounce sounds in a sequence to form words. The child with CAS does not usually have muscle weakness that would impair their use of the specific muscles that are needed to produce speech. The brain has a problem sending the message to a child's mouth to plan the movements of their tongue, lips and jaw to produce speech.
The Apraxia-Kids Web site reports that "CAS is low incidence with perhaps one to 10 in 1,000 children affected or 3 to 5 percent of speech-impaired preschoolers. In addition, some believe that the incidence of CAS may have increased in recent years. However, there are no published scientific data to support this general sense of increased incidence."
