Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a speech disorder that is quite rare among children. It most often occurs when a child has difficulty, or cannot, make accurate movements while they are speaking.
If your child has CAS, it doesn't mean that their speech muscles are weak, it means that their brain cannot develop coherent plans for movement while speaking.
At SpeechAim we recognize that early cognitive development allows your child's brain to develop and learn how to move their speech muscles while they are speaking. This allows us to help your child learn how to move muscles such as the jaw, tongue and lips to produce the correct sounds and words that we use to communicate with.
We pride ourselves on our comprehensive intervention of numerous speech disorders, including CAS. Using up-to date and evidence-based methods, our expert speech-language pathologists are here to help.
It is important to recognize that not all children with motor speech disorders have apraxia. This differentiation is not always clearly distinguishable, but we are confident that we can help.
Although in Ontario, medical doctors are responsible for diagnosing CAS, this is done so with the support of a SLP. Through this confusing process, us at SpeechAim will provide you with all the guidance and support that you need.
Here are some of the symptoms that your child may display for apraxia:
Due to the nature of the illness, childhood apraxia of speech rarely occurs alone. As a result, your child may behavior may be accompanied by a range of other language or cognitive deficits, which may cause a number of other issues related to speech.
Spotting the early signs for apraxia is extremely important. The earlier it is spotted, the quicker our specialists at SpeechAim can provide therapy to help, and even prevent the apraxia from developing further.
All sessions will be uniquely tailored to your child to have the greatest effect. In general, certain cases may require from 1 to around 3-5 speech therapy sessions a week, to make use of a range of speech exercises in order to improve and alleviate symptoms.
We also make use of sign language, which has shown consistent positive results among children. The use of signing can significantly aid with all types of speech development. If you believe that your child is showing signs or apraxia, then please contact us below to schedule an appointment.