What is childhood apraxia of speech?

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder that makes it difficult for children to speak and reduces their overall intelligibility (how well their speech is understood by others). The child knows what they want to say but has difficulty programming that plan into actual sound sequences necessary for speech. This disorder is also characterized by the inconsistencies of errors in the child’s speech and by affected prosody (the “melody”) of their voice.

CAS is estimated to occur in 0.1% - 0.2% of children (Shriberg et al., 1997), is more common in males than females (Hall, Jordan, & Robin, 1993; Lewis et al., 2004), and can range in severity from mild to severe. There is also research to support that children with CAS are more likely to also have disordered language, reading, and spelling than those without (Lewis et al., 2004; Lewis & Ekelman, 2007).

If you are a parent of a child with CAS, a speech therapist can provide therapy that will target the underlying planning and programming involved in sequencing sounds into meaningful speech in order to increase your child’s ease, naturalness, and intelligibility when speaking. Therapy is typically recommended to occur frequently with high intensity (i.e., multiple sessions a week with a lot of practice during each session) but can be adapted to your child’s specific needs.