Children With Suspected Childhood Apraxia Of Speech

Across the world today, there are many kids who have difficulty with speaking. Many children never get this issue resolved, because they do not have the proper therapy to fix the problem. However, The Association Method, founded in 1956 and professionally developed throughout the years, has seemed to guide these struggling children. The Association Method is a well-known method used to bring speech-disordered kids back into the school system.

It is a speech disorder which causes problems in the co-ordination and flow of speech.  Children may:

The purpose of the present study was to determine if the types of preschool verbalization sound errors can signal school-age outcomes for children with speech and sound disorders. The second purpose was to determine if preschool verbalization errors are symbolic of school-age verbalization sound production skills. Preston, Hull, & Edwards (2013) hypothesized that children who generate many distortion errors in preschool may be at risk for continuing verbalization sound errors at school age.

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 purpose of this evidence based research paper is to evaluate the efficacy of the cycles approach when compared to the traditional articulation therapy approach in the treatment of children who are highly unintelligible. The Cycles Phonological Remediation Approach (Hodson, 2011) is a treatment method for children with severe speech sound disorders. This approach targets phonological pattern errors in a sequential manner. During each cycle, one or more phonological patterns are targeted and after each cycle is complete, another cycle begins. Recycling of phonological patterns continues until the targeted patterns are generalized into the child’s conversational speech. The cycles approach is meant to mirror typical phonological development in children (Hodson, 2011).

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.

There are many different language delays and disorders found in the pediatric population. Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is one of the most common of these disorders. Dr. Libby Kumin defines CAS as “a motor speech disorder where children have difficulty planning, coordinating, producing and sequencing speech sounds” (Kumin, n.d.). Apraxia does not occur because of weakness or paralysis of facial and oral muscles. It occurs when a child’s brain cannot properly plan the movement of body parts necessary for normal speech production (“Childhood Apraxia,” 2011). Though CAS is the most common name for this specific disorder, it is also referred to as a variety of other names. Some of these names include: dyspraxia, developmental

Stuttering is a communication disorder that involuntary effects the fluency of speech. Disfluencies in speech include both “nonstuttered” and “stuttered” disfluencies. “Nonstuttered” disfluencies include interjections, revisions, phrase repetitions, and other. Everyone produces disfluencies in their speech at times making “nonstuttered” disfluencies more typical in speech. “Stuttered” disfluencies are less typical and include word repetitions, sound/syllable repetitions, prolongations, and blocks. It is important to differentiate if a child is producing typical disfluencies or non-typical disfluencies in order to assess their fluency of speech. Secondary behaviors including physical tension, frustration, and avoidance can be

Childhood apraxia of speech demonstrates a broad range of specific speech characteristics. A variety of diagnostic descriptions entail characteristic symptoms throughout the stages of development. According to ASHA, the origin and clinical traits of CAS continues, although many researchers and clinicians are in agreement that it's a motor speech disorder.

From personal experience I know that when a child struggles with their speech due to having a speech

Dr. Francoise Brosseau-Lapre is a licensed CCC-SLP. After getting her masters in Speech-Language Pathology, she worked as a clinician for a few years in a hospital setting in Montreal. While working as a clinician she became concerned that they were not properly identifying and providing the most effective interventions for children. Using evidence based practice with science at the forefront is important to Brosseau-Lapre. She went back to school and got her PhD. She joined the department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at Purdue University in 2013.

Dysarthria and apraxia are speech disorders, which affect the motor skills of a person. These two speech disorders can occur concurrently with one another. Dysarthria is a result of impaired movement of the muscles that are used for speech production, which includes the tongue, lips, vocal folds, and the diaphragm. The severity and type of dysarthria depend on the location of where the nervous system is affected. Apraxia occurs when the messages from the brain to the mouth are disrupted, causing the person to be unable to move the lips or tongue to the right place to say sounds correctly, even though the muscles in the mouth are not weak. For apraxia, the severity depends on the brain damage. Despite both speech disorders

In order to look at the efficacy of this treatment method a research study was selected that measured the results of using this treatment approach. Treating Speech Subsystems in Childhood Apraxia of Speech with Tactical Input: The Prompt Approach, written by Philip S. Dale and Deborah A. Hayden is a peer reviewed article published in 2013 in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. The study indicates that PROMPT based treatments yielded significant results. Children made advances in both the scores on the standardized tests and on the untreated items, demonstrating generalization. Tactile kinestetic cues added greatly to the motor speech training. This is a very complex training program that works to treat children with very complex disorders (Dale and Hayden, 2013).

The purpose of the Kaufman Speech to Language Protocol (K-SLP) is to shape the child’s current level of speech production into higher levels of motor-speech coordination. Essentially, this therapy technique aims to isolate speech components and increase motor skills at a reasonable pace. When simpler oral motor movements have been mastered, children's’ therapy focus will shift to higher level speech motor movements, along with correct use of morphology and syntax. It is a treatment approach for children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), other speech sound disorders, and expressive language challenges.

When I was three years old, I learned that I had apraxia of speech. It is a speech impairment and it causes issues with fine and gross motor skills. I was