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Home › Articles › Speech/Language Issues › Late Talkers

Late Talkers

Correctly Diagnosing Speech Disorders

By Kelly Burgess

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At the end of her son's first therapy session to treat his apraxia, Sharon Gretz broke down and cried. "I heard more sounds from Luke's mouth that day than I had heard in his first three years," says Gretz. "Just seeing him so excited about being able to make those sounds and knowing that he was getting the right kind of help filled me with emotion."

Some of that emotion, unfortunately, was regret at the time they had wasted in traditional speech therapy when, in fact, apraxia of speech is not a traditional speech disorder. Gretz, of Indiana Township, Penn., who went on to found the Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association, notes that apraxia is often wrongly diagnosed because it's thought of as an adult disorder.

About Apraxia
The reason diagnosing apraxia of speech can be difficult is because it was once thought of as something that adults developed after a neurological incident such as a stroke. It has only been in recent years that therapists and researchers have come to realize that children can present with the same types of language difficulties – even when there is no known neurological incident. Because apraxia of speech in children is rather rare, many graduate programs in speech therapy don't even touch on it. Therefore, the programs that are commonly in place to treat speech disorders caused by developmental delays don't work with apraxia.

The name apraxia comes from the root word "praxis," which means "planned movement," and there are actually several forms of the disorder. With verbal apraxia, children have difficulty planning and producing the specific series of movements of the tongue, lips, jaw and palate that are necessary for intelligible speech. With oral apraxia, they are unable to carry out facial movements on command, such as blowing out a candle or licking their lips. This also impacts the ability to verbalize.

Dr. Marilyn Agin, a neurodevelopmental pediatrician and co-author of The Late Talker: What to Do If Your Child Isn't Talking Yet

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