What causes developmental apraxia?
Developmental apraxia is felt to be a “soft” sign of an inadequate functioning in the brain that affects speech production. The area of this subtle brain malfunction has not been identified even with neurological tests.. Theories accounting for this difficulty include: · The brain impairment is so small that it cannot be detected. · The impairment is so broad or spread out that it cannot be located (i.e., the “wiring” is different). In addition, there is no known specific cause that has been linked to this subtle brain malfunction even in the child’s birth and prenatal history. Finally, although developmental apraxia is felt to be neurologically based, intelligence is not necessarily affected. In fact, many children identified with developmental apraxia are of normal or above normal intelligence.
