Summary: Childhood Apraxia Of Speech

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), also known as developmental apraxia of speech (DAS), is a childhood speech sound disorder caused by the impairment of the motor movements of the articulators related to speech production. This impairment impacts the coordination and accuracy of the muscles used to coordinate the speech production (Vinson, 2001). This disease differs from dysarthria, which impacts the execution of the utterance instead of the planning and programming of the speech movement. The prevalence of this disorder ranges from as low as 1 out of 1000 children per birth to as high as 3-4 children per 100 children (Dale & Hayden, 2013). All of the children who has been diagnosed with CAS are at risk for several speech and language concerns …show more content…
There are often problems determining the level of severity of the motor speech portion of this impairment and how that impacts the speech sound disorder (Dale & Hayden, 2013). This paper will explore several possible treatments that have been studied in detail. These protocols explore several different facets of treatment and how they impact intervention results.The first is a well-established treatment approach for CAS: the PROMPT treatment. The second treatment approach explored is related to the efficacy of combination of both phonological treatments and motor speech treatment. The third treatment explored will include an in depth analysis related to the efficacy of blocked sessions in comparison to random treatment sessions. The fourth and final treatment will look at the impact of feedback frequency. The purpose of this analysis is to look at the different factors that may impact CAS …show more content…
This is a tactile kinesthetic-based treatment method demonstrated to work with motor speech disorders in adults and children. This treatment is based on a heirachary of motor movements in the different speech subsystems such as lip, tongue and jaw. The training progresses to normalized motor movements from the proceeding levels of motor control. This type of treatment normally follows a very predictable route starting with a bottom-up approach. Starting with the core muscles and then moving up to the supralanrngeal muscle control and coordination. There are seven stages of motor speech systems that are focused on are all developmental and interactive in nature. The first stage is related to tone, the second stage is phonatory control, the third stage is mandibular control, the fourth stage is labio-facial control, the fifth stage is lingual control, the sixth stage is sequenced movements and the seventh stage is prosody. These aspects have been identified as elements that need to be addressed when working with CAS. Treatment focuses heavily on the integration of tactile kinestetic cues in order to integrate the child's speech movements with different sensory integration cues. These cues are then faded as therapy continues in order to