What is developmental verbal apraxia of speech?
This is when a child may have difficulty with volitional movement for the production of speech. Common characteristics may include: uneven or slow speech, difficulty putting sounds in the correct order, omission of sounds, more difficulty with longer words and sentences, and inconsistent mistakes.
With apraxia, the brain has difficulty communicating to the mouth how to effectively move the jaw, lips and tongue to say speech sounds. PROMPT therapy is one effective way to address apraxia. Common characteristics of apraxia may include: difficulty placing sounds in the correct order, deleting sounds, inconsistent mistakes, and more difficulty with multisyllabic words. Apraxia can not be diagnosed if a young child is not talking, but an experienced speech therapist will use a comprehensive treatment approach and treat the child for language delay and potential apraxia simultaneously. Apraxia is difficult to diagnose and can not truly be diagnosed until age 3 or 4.
