Childhood Apraxia Of Speech : A Motor Speech Disorder

The Association Method is a complex approach to treating children with speech disorders. Since 1962, when it was founded, The Association Method has been modified and expanded (“What is the Dubard…”). “The Association Method is a multisensory, phonics-based

There, I had the privilege of seeing an Early-Intervention Speech Therapist work with one of my students. She would sit on the floor and play games with him. Through these games, she was able to elicit verbalization from this child who normally grunted to communicate. Over a course of a year, I witnessed his communication skills enhance little-by-little with the assistance of this therapist. I had not realized how much he had improved until I saw him interacting with his friends at the dress-up center. This little boy who would once play alone on the floor was now requesting different objects and laughing with his friends. Recollecting his progress was phenomenal. Inspired by what I saw, I researched more about the field. While doing so, my mother disclosed to me that she and her father had an articulation disorder. Although my grandfather did not receive services, my mother received therapy in school, which she recalls as an unpleasant experience. Taking into account all that I witnessed and learned about the subject, I realized that I had found the middle ground between teacher and therapist that I had been searching for in Speech-Language Pathology.

The participants consisted of 43 preschoolers with verbalization and sound disorders between the ages of four and five. The participants were selected through clinical recommendations in upstate New York from May 2007 to April 2008. Children were primarily from middle

Ava Bracciante, an eight year-one month old female, who has been attending Lehman College Speech and Hearing Clinic since spring 2014 due to parental concerns regarding her articulation. She is currently attending the clinic once a week for 50-minute sessions. Ava’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bracciante, provided the case history report and stated that Ava received a speech-language evaluation at the Ampark School in 2014. The evaluation revealed gliding of the lingua-palatal rhotic /r/ and vocalization of the rhotic diphthong /ɚ/; her intelligibility was not compromised; therefore, she did not qualify for services. Mrs. Bracciante reported that she has seen an improvement in Ava’s speech and is an active participant to her progress.

The scope of practice of speech-language pathology describes the ethical and clinical responsibility of clinicians to implement therapy techniques, which contains efficacy that is supported by evidence. Non-speech oral-motor exercises (NSOMEs), in particular have raised controversy among speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and researchers when treating children with articulation and phonological disorders. The use of NSOMEs is a debated issue in the profession due to the lack of evidence based practice (EBP), poor clinical assumptions, and the avoidance of meeting the client’s needs.

While speech-sound errors may occur in a typically developing child, if these errors persist beyond the expected age, it becomes indicative of a speech disorder and requires treatment (Peña-Brooks & Hedge, 2015). Speech-sound disorders in children will not only affect intelligibility of the individual, but can also have pervasive effects on communication skills, social involvement, and future employment, leading to an overall reduced quality of life (Johnson, Beitchman, and Brownlie, 2010). However, if individuals with speech-sound disorders receive speech-language services in childhood, evidence supports these children are likely to become effective communicators (Johnson, Beitchman, and Brownlie, 2010). Speech-language pathologists

Neurological systems were also evaluated to identify any existing health or comorbidities promptly and to utilize interventions such as referral to neurologists, ophthalmologists, or speech pathologists if necessary. Developmental red flags, in this case, would include the inability to understand the use of action words and being unable to follow two-step direction (Bellman et al., 2013). This would be indicative of receptive language delay. Expressive language delays are characterized by a child’s inability to ask for things by name, use no less than 200 words, or repeat phrases in response to questions (Stevenson & Richman, 2016). However, none of these red flags was reported by the child’s

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), also known as central auditory processing disorder (CAPD), is a neurological defect that affects how the brain processes spoken language. It affects about 5% of school-aged children making it difficult for the child to process verbal instructions or to cancel out background noise in the classroom. A child who has Auditory Processing Disorder may have the same kind of behavioral problems as a child who has ADD, and also might be confused with Autism, Asperger’s, Language processing disorder, and Dyslexia. For children who suffer from APD, the understanding of meanings, sound combination, and the categorical order of words are mistaken.

Those students are always in for a long road of speech therapy as well as, problems with reading. I am interested in new research in the area because these students are typically of average intelligence but struggle in school immensely because of their disorder. According to the webinar on Childhood Apraxia of Speech, CAS is defined as a neurological childhood speech sound disorder in which the precision and consistency of movements underlying speech are impaired. The main features of the disorder consist of inconsistent errors lengthened, disrupted coarticulatory transitions, and inappropriate prosody. Motor performance is the generalization of learned behaviors while motor learning is the retention or generalization of learned behaviors. Motor learning is the problem that children with CAS encounter. Phonological awareness is important for students with CAS because they have difficulty with reading and spelling. The training of sounds can be done while also training speech sound production. A new therapy technique for CAS is using ultrasound biofeedback to establish a motor skill at the syllable or word level. The benefits of ultrasound are that the student can visually see the elevation of the tongue or retraction on hard to form sounds such as /r/. The disadvantage is that most clinicians do not have access to ultrasound at a reasonable cost to

Students with speech and language impairment are often in general or regular classrooms. To help students with this type of disorders early intervention is way to address this communication problem. Children who are often classify, as high risk are those with chronic ear infection, genetic defects, alcohol syndrome, neurological defects or delayed language. Those who treat this disorders are called speech language pathologist and they could treat as young as 3. Around the age of two most children say around 50 or more words. At the age of there are very chatty and can begin to put sentences together. Also at three they begin to discover that different words having meaning. When the child is delay or one of the components of communication is disrupted the child is at risk for a language

We need to expand the Apraxia bubble to the parents who aren't affected by it, to the teachers who know nothing about it, and to the speech professionals who somehow do not know about it. The rewards alone in connecting the Apraxia community to the non-Apraxia community are incredible and slowly, but surely it CAN be done.

The teacher or the parent might not even know that a student has a speech disorder. Parents and teachers believe that all speech disorders have some connection with the mouth, but in some cases speech disorders are caused by other parts of the body. Speech impairments could be caused just by simple hearing loss. Even if it is just hearing loss it could still affect the child.

Child hood Apraxia of Speech is a motor speech disorder that affects children’s ability to say sounds, syllables, and words. The brain has trouble coordinating muscle movements that are needed for speech. The child knows exactly what to speak, but the brain has trouble coordinating the muscle movements. It is different for every person that has this type of disorder. In some other cases, it can be an unknown cause, meaning it can happen out of the blue, or by mutations. One of the articles is based off of reliability and validity testing and scoring by the Dynamic Evaluation of Motor Speech Skills, while the other has different assessments that were tested and transcribed.

CAS is one of the most difficult disorders to diagnose. Many speech pathologists are worried that it is commonly over diagnosed and misdiagnosed (“Apraxia: Speech Therapy,” 2011). It is not known how many children actually have CAS, but it appears to be on the rise. Certain factors, such as increased awareness of CAS by professionals and families, evaluation and identification

Many causes can be attributed to speech and language delay, and it is important to understand the characteristics of the causes in order to help a child effectively. Although speech delay can be just that, it may indicate other issues or disorders and may be the first indicator of such (American Family Physician, 2011, pg.1183). Some causes of speech delay are mental retardation, hearing loss, developmental language delay, expressive language disorder, bilingualism, psychosocial development, elective mutism, and receptive aphasia (American Family Physician, 1999).