Apraxia is a rare speech disorder that occurs in children causing difficulty in speech. It affects the planning ability for making the right set of speech movement. The child’s brain will not make enough plans for making right movement of jaw or lips while talking resulting in slurred speech. The child with apraxia cannot make accurate movement of his lips or jaws while talking. It is commonly known as CAS (childhood apraxia of speech). Dyspraxia is the term given for mild forms of apraxia.
Types :
Basically there are 2 types of apraxia namely acquired and developmental.
- Acquired apraxia is the form that can affect people of any age group. It can affect the normal speaking ability of the person.
- Developmental apraxia is the type that occurs in children. Often, this condition is present from birth and the child with this problem will have struggle in making right movements of lips and jaws while talking. But these children can understand what others are talking. Most of the children will show considerable improvement by therapy.
Symptoms :
Depending on the severity of the disorder the symptoms of each child with apraxia will differ. Some of the common signs of childhood apraxia are limited number of words and producing only few sounds. Initial symptoms will appear anywhere from 1.5 to 2 years of the child. There can be voicing errors when the child tries to say some words. Most of the children with this problem will have struggle in making their jaw movements and retaining their lips in the right position while pronouncing a word or sound.
With parents support and speech therapy many children can make improved speech within a year or two. Some children will have difficulty in understanding speech or language. Sometimes there can be specific language problems for the child. The affected child will have reduced babbling when he was an infant and will have great difficulty in combining syllables together to form a word. There are children who can say few easy words but have problem while saying complex words.