How do you tell the difference between a late talker and speech disorder (apraxia)?
Children with verbal apraxia present with “flags,” or criteria/symptoms which eliminate the label of late talker, a developmental disorder which will right itself without intensive, specific, one-on-one intervention. Apraxic children have never demonstrated early sound play. They tend to be quiet babies, often described as “serious” children. They do not, nor did they, babble(the noises babies classically make ie “gaga, googoo”). Apraxic children understand everything but, in contrast, cannot demonstrate their understanding with a verbal response. Most times, their imitative skills are good. When given a model, they can approximate the presented word, but they cannot produce the sound/word/sentence volitionally without this model. The number of movements required for sequencing to produce a message greatly affects the outcome. Their ability to repeat these series of movements in sequence for a particular word or sentence is significantly hindered. Their inconsistency for this task is t
