Apraxia of Speech

March 14, 2018May 31, 2023 angela 3582 Views

Apraxia is a motor speech disorder caused by injury to the brain in which messages from the brain to the mouth are disrupted, causing sound movements to incorrectly hit their targets and disrupting one’s ability to speak. In the case of pure speech apraxia, the speech muscles are not weak but there is a difficulty with motor planning and sequencing of speech movements. Apraxia often co-occurs with dysarthria (weakened speech muscles) and in this case both disorders are targeted in treatment.

Our treatment of apraxia includes the use of gestures and touch cues to stimulate the correct motor sequence for words/phrases during treatment. During online treatment sessions, touch cues are utilized on the clinician (self-cued) and this is often effective to cue the person with apraxia to produce the correct speech sequence. Family can be taught techniques as well, depending on what appears to work best for the client. If these cues are not effective, then in-person treatment may be best and the client and family would then be advised to seek a clinician in their area for in-person speech therapy.

The owner of Salubris Speech Therapy has years of experience with childhood apraxia of speech with a direct family member and has experience in successful treatment of adult acquired apraxia of speech following stroke.