What is verbal apraxia?
Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is an oral-motor disorder (mouth-movement problem) that causes the child’s speech to be hard to understand. It is usually detected after two years of age, when speech development is noted to be delayed. Children with CAS may have a hard time putting the tongue, lips and jaw in the right position in order to make many speech sounds. He or she will have trouble putting speech sounds together (i.e., /b – a – t / for “bat”). Longer sentences or words are more difficult for the child to say, which causes more errors. This makes the child’s speech harder to understand. The child may be able to make a sound or word correctly one time, but not be able to say it another time. Usually, the child with CAS does not have difficulty with non-speech movements such as chewing, licking or swallowing. Children with CAS may have problems with other motor skills such as cutting, coloring, and writing. The difficulty with planning movements together may even result in prob
