What are the typical characteristics of childhood apraxia of speech?
Research shows that the three characteristics seen the most in CAS are: • inconsistent speech sound errors • difficulty moving from one speech sound to another or one syllable to another • abnormal rhythm, stress and intonation during speech These are other characteristics that may be seen: • difficulty producing many speech sounds • use of only vowel sounds, grunts, or single syllables to communicate • use of only a few speech sounds during speech • more errors on longer sentences or longer words than with single sounds or syllables • difficulty and struggle when trying to find the right mouth position to make a sound • difficulty starting a sound • normal receptive language (understanding) skills, but limited expressive language (talking) skills • difficulty imitating mouth movements (in severe cases)
