Apraxia of speech therapy techniques are used by speech-language pathologists who treat children with apraxia of speech. These techniques are based on the severity of the child’s disorder and/or his or her age. The treatments used for apraxia can also be combined with other treatments for related disorders such as language delays, cognitive impairments, or autism.
Apraxia of speech therapy is a challenging area, but one that can be rewarding. It can be frustrating to work with clients who struggle to communicate their emotions and thoughts, but we find that with patience and understanding, we’re able to help our clients improve their verbal communication skills.
Apraxia of Speech (AOS) is a speech disorder that causes difficulty in producing the right sounds. People with apraxia have trouble moving the muscles used to produce speech and this can cause difficulties with speaking, reading, writing and understanding language. AOS can affect people of all ages but it is most common in children under three years old.
There are several types of AOS: Expressive AOS, Receptive AOS and Mixed Receptive-expressive AOS (MR/E). Each type has its own symptoms and treatment options so that it is important to know which kind you have before starting any therapy program for apraxia.
The first step to treating an apraxia patient’s speech difficulties is determining what type of AOS they have. Once this information has found out, then appropriate therapy techniques can be used to help them improve their communication skills.
There are many different therapies that can be used for treating AOS patients but one of the most effective ones involves using a combination of both speech therapy and occupational therapy (OT).
Children with apraxia of speech make sound errors that may vary in type and severity. Some children have difficulty sequencing the sounds in syllables and words, while others can only say a few sounds or have problems saying any sounds at all. There may be inconsistent errors on repeated productions of the same word and variable errors across different words that sound similar.
Some children have difficulty moving their lips or tongue into position to make sounds and may experience fatigue while trying to speak due to an inability to relax their muscles during movement. The error patterns seen in childhood apraxia of speech may change over time as a child attempts to compensate for difficulties with movement planning and programming.
The spontaneous speech of preschool children with apraxia of speech is usually more impaired than their imitative or non-imitative repetition abilities.
AOS can be mild or severe. In mild cases, the person knows what he or she wants to say but is unable to move the lips or tongue in the right way to make those sounds. In severe cases, the person cannot produce any sounds at all. The severity of AOS can change over time; it can become more severe when the person is tired, under stress, or sick.
There are many different causes of AOS including head injury, stroke, brain tumors, infections such as encephalitis and meningitis, and dementia. Parkinson’s disease may also cause AOS.