Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a pediatric speech disorder characterized by difficulty acquiring speech sounds in a consistent manner, with inconsistent sound errors and struggling behaviors during speech. Differential diagnosis is challenging because CAS shares behaviors with other speech disorders. CAS is further complicated by often co-occurring with other communication disorders like dysarthria or language impairments. The document outlines key behaviors that help identify CAS, including inconsistent errors on repeated sounds and syllables, disrupted transitions between sounds, and inappropriate prosody. A thorough evaluation of speech and language skills is needed to differentiate CAS from similar disorders.
Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a pediatric speech disorder characterized by difficulty acquiring speech sounds in a consistent manner, with inconsistent sound errors and struggling behaviors during speech. Differential diagnosis is challenging because CAS shares behaviors with other speech disorders. CAS is further complicated by often co-occurring with other communication disorders like dysarthria or language impairments. The document outlines key behaviors that help identify CAS, including inconsistent errors on repeated sounds and syllables, disrupted transitions between sounds, and inappropriate prosody. A thorough evaluation of speech and language skills is needed to differentiate CAS from similar disorders.
Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a pediatric speech disorder characterized by difficulty acquiring speech sounds in a consistent manner, with inconsistent sound errors and struggling behaviors during speech. Differential diagnosis is challenging because CAS shares behaviors with other speech disorders. CAS is further complicated by often co-occurring with other communication disorders like dysarthria or language impairments. The document outlines key behaviors that help identify CAS, including inconsistent errors on repeated sounds and syllables, disrupted transitions between sounds, and inappropriate prosody. A thorough evaluation of speech and language skills is needed to differentiate CAS from similar disorders.
Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a pediatric speech disorder characterized by difficulty acquiring speech sounds in a consistent manner, with inconsistent sound errors and struggling behaviors during speech. Differential diagnosis is challenging because CAS shares behaviors with other speech disorders. CAS is further complicated by often co-occurring with other communication disorders like dysarthria or language impairments. The document outlines key behaviors that help identify CAS, including inconsistent errors on repeated sounds and syllables, disrupted transitions between sounds, and inappropriate prosody. A thorough evaluation of speech and language skills is needed to differentiate CAS from similar disorders.
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1/ 11
CHILDHOOD APRAXIA OF
SPEECH Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a pediatric speech disorder of known or unknown neurologic origin. It is disorder of articulation characterized by difficulty acquiring speech, inconsistent sound errors, and groping or struggle behaviors during speech. Differential diagnosis is challenging because behaviors associated with CAS are also associated with other communicative disorders. These may include dysarthria, speech delay, fluency disorder, expressive and receptive language impairment, literacy disorder, and phonological impairment. This is complicated by the fact that CAS often co-occurs with one or more of these other communicative disorders. Behaviors associated with CAS vary from one child to another, and also vary within the same child as the child matures. Although currently there are no distinguishing features that completely differentiate CAS from other childhood speech disorders, there are behaviors that are especially characteristic of CAS. An American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) ad hoc committee identified the following three segmental and suprasegmental features of CAS: 1. Inconsistent errors on consonants and vowels in repeated productions of syllables or words 2. Lengthened and disrupted coarticulatory transitions between sounds and syllables 3. Inappropriate prosody, especially in the realization of lexical or phrasal stress (ASHA, 2007) The same committee stressed that clinicians should focus on differentiating CAS from other similar disorders during an assessment. Clinicians should evaluate all aspects of speech that may be affected, with particular emphasis on: Automatic versus volitional actions Single postures versus sequences of postures Simple contexts versus more complex or novel contexts • Repetitions of the same stimuli versus repetitions of varying stimuli • Tasks for which responses can be judged after auditory versus visual cues, auditory versus tactile cues, visual versus tactile cues, or which combinations (e.g., auditory and visual) seem to produce the best results. • Fluidity, rate, and accuracy of speech in relationship to one another • Performance of tasks in multiple contexts (e.g., spontaneous speech, imitation, elicited speech, discourse, utterances of varying lengths, etc.) (ASHA, 2007) Communicative Behaviors Associated with Childhood Apraxia of Speech
Non speech Motor Behaviors
o General awkwardness or clumsiness o Impaired volitional oral movements o Mild delays in motor development o Mildly low muscle tone o Hyper- or hyposensitivity in the oral area o Oral apraxia Speech Motor Behaviors o Difficulty with repetitions of syllables and diadochokinesis o Slow speech development o Multiple speech sound errors o Reduced intelligibility o Reduced phonetic or phonemic inventories o Reduced vowel inventory Vowel errors o Inconsistency of errors o Increased errors in longer or more complex syllable and word shapes o Errors in the ordering of sounds (migration and metathesis), syllables, morphemes, or even words o Groping Persistent or frequent regression o Differences in performance of automatic versus volitional activities Prosodic Characteristics o Excessive-equal stress of syllables o Staccato speech (syllable segregation) o Variations in rate, including prolonged sounds and prolonged pauses between sounds, syllables, or words o Reduced range of pitch or variable pitch o Reduced range of loudness or variable loudness o Monotone o Monoloud o Variable nasal resonance Speech Perception Characteristics o Reduced auditory perception o Reduced auditory discrimination o Reduced auditory memory Language Characteristics o Significant language deficits o Morphologic omissions o Deficits in expressive and receptive language, with expressive consistently lagging behind receptive language o Family history of language impairment Metalinguistics/ Literacy Characteristics o Reduced phonological awareness o Difficulty with word identification o Poor spelling o Increased self-awareness of speech production limitations (metalinguistic awareness)
