Does your child have difficulties in communicating with others? Probably your child has developmental apraxia of speech. Through this article, we will explain about development apraxia of speech, especially the symptoms.
The structure of this article is as follows:
- General description
- Developmental apraxia of speech: The Symptoms
Optimistically you will acquire valuable information through this article.
We wish you a very happy learning!
General Description
Developmental apraxia of speech is one of the causes of delayed language development in typically developing children. According to SLPs, a disorder of communication development in children can be known by the age of 18 months Therefore, it is extremely important to identify and treat these factors:
- Speech challenges
- Hearing challenges
- Language challenges
Parents should put their concern about these three factors in their children as early as possible as they might impact the development of social, emotional and cognitive abilities. When parents notify the problem, i.e. parents feel like they have a late-talking child, contacting a speech language pathologist would be very helpful to understand and cope with the problem.
Developmental apraxia of speech occurs because of failure in the messages transmission from the brain to the following muscles:
- Jaw muscles
- Cheek muscles
- Tongue muscles
- Palate muscles
These muscles are vital to facilitate speech. There should be no weakness within these muscles. A child with apraxia is able to move them quite easily when he/she is not trying to speak. Based on the interviews with children who have apraxia, they feel a “road block” when they try to communicate with others.
Developmental apraxia of speech: The Symptoms
What are the symptoms of developmental apraxia of speech?
- Shows indications of frustration along with incapability to communicate
- Possibility of limited vowel sounds
- Small amount of consonant sounds
- Difficulty imitating words and sounds
- Little or no babbling during infancy
- Late beginning of first words
- Mostly, a child with apraxia is an intentional communicator. However, he/she uses gestures, grunts, and other non-verbal practices of communication.
Other symptoms can be added when the child has already developed some speech. The added symptoms are:
- Difficulty among the family members to understand the child’s speech
- Slow or no progress with the traditional way of speech therapy
- When the child attempts to communicate, his/her mouth might show groping
- Unclear speech
- Unpredictable speech errors
- Replacing incorrect sounds in words
- Leaving out sounds in words
As a parent you should understand that developmental apraxia of speech will not disappear on its own. An appropriate treatment or therapy is necessary to help your child speak clearly so that he/she does not experience frustration.
