Verbal Apraxia Marita Keane

What is Apraxia of Speech?  Apraxia of speech ( AOS ) is an oral motor speech disorder affecting an individual’s ability to translate conscious speech plans into motor plans, which results in limited and difficult speech ability

What is Apraxia of Speech?  Neurological disorder where kids cant speak because their mouths aren’t getting the information from the brain brain.

What are the types of Apraxia?  Acquired apraxia  Can affect a person at any age (mostly occurs in adults)  Caused by damage to the parts of the brain that are involved in speaking  Involves the loss or impairment of existing speech abilities  The disorder may result from a stroke, head injury, tumor, or other brain injuries.

Developmental Apraxia  Occurs in children and is present from birth.  Affects more boys than girls  The exact cause of developmental apraxia is not yet known.  Studies show it is a disorder related to a child’s overall language development and that it is a neurological disorder that affects the brain’s ability to send the proper signals to move the muscles involved in speech.

Developmental Apraxia  Children with developmental apraxia often have family members who have a history of communication disorders or learning disabilities.  Genetic factors may play a role in this disorder.

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Apraxia in the Classroom  Higher risk for literacy related problems  Spelling is more difficult than reading  Reading is a recognition process where children need 'partial cues,' where as spelling is a retrieval process which requires 'full cues'.

Apraxia in the Classroom  Difficulty developing phonological awareness skills.  Sound segmentation difficulties  errors suggest these children use “guess work” versus “sounding out strategies.” (Spelling attempts may seem bizarre.)

Apraxia in the Classroom  Can understand language much better than he or she can talk  Imitated speech is more clear than spontaneous speech  Has more difficulty saying longer words or phrases clearly than shorter ones

Apraxia in the Classroom  Appears to have more difficulty when he or she is anxious  Is hard to understand, especially for an unfamiliar listener  Sounds choppy, monotonous, or stresses the wrong syllable or word

Strategies to Teach Children with Apraxia  Use multisensory teaching including visual, kinesthetic, and auditory techniques  For example, when learning the letter combination “ong” the child might first look at it and then have to trace the letters in the air while speaking out loud.

Strategies to Teach Children with Apraxia  Present one rule at a time and don’t move on until the student can master the rule  Work in small groups so the students can work at their own pace  Use technology to compensate for motor delays that accompany apraxia

Strategies to Teach Children with Apraxia  Computers allow those with handwriting difficulty to express themselves and answer questions on a worksheet.  Large projection computer touch screens in the classrooms allow students to work in front of the class or in teams.

Strategies to Teach Children with Apraxia  Speech therapy is provided both individually and in the classroom as part of the curriculum.  Speech-sound activities  Using rhythm and music to help develop sound combinations  Modeling motor movements used to produce specific sounds and words

Strategies to Teach Children with Apraxia  Encouraging self-monitoring of speech production.  Repetition of sounds using repetitive books  pause and let students fill in part of the repeated phrase

Resources  raxia.aspx raxia.aspx   ?c=chKMI0PIIsE&b=701777&ct= ?c=chKMI0PIIsE&b=701777&ct=  dhoodapraxia.htm dhoodapraxia.htm