If you’ve made your way here, we’re guessing you’ve recently been told about Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), or have had the potential diagnosis mentioned after meeting with a medical professional. Before we dive into this topic, we’d like to encourage you to take a deep breath. While CAS is a rare speech condition, it is treatable, and with the support of a great Speech Pathology team you’ll be able to help the little one in your life kick their communication goals out of the park.  

So, are you ready to explore what Childhood Apraxia of Speech is and what you can expect from Speech Pathology support? Let’s get started. 

 

What is Childhood Apraxia of Speech? 

As we’ve just mentioned, Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a rare speech condition. It causes difficulties with the movements of the muscles required to produce speech and it is a lifelong condition. This diagnosis is also referred to as developmental verbal dyspraxia.  

At the beginning of the diagnosis process, the severity of the condition will likely be quite high. Your little one will likely be frustrated by communicating verbally – or eventually stop attempting due to the difficulties they are experiencing trying to get their ‘mouth to move in the right way’ to say what they want to say. 

It can be hard as a parent or guardian to watch this frustration play out – and we want to encourage you that by seeking the support of a Speech Pathologist and allied health team early, you are doing everything you can to get them on the path to improvement. 

 

What Are the Signs and Symptoms of CAS? 

There are many different signs and not all children will have the same ones. The signs also change as a child gets older and as the severity of the condition changes.  

Young children with CAS may:  

• have difficulty feeding 
• coo, babble or play with sounds less than other children 
• use a limited range of sounds when they do begin to talk 
• find it easier to understand others than talk themselves 
• visibly struggle to talk, groping or searching for sounds 
• be very hard to understand even to people close to them (i.e. family members). 

Older children with CAS may:  

• struggle with longer words or phrases 
• drop or add sounds to words (e.g., ‘copa’ for ‘helicopter’; ‘umbararella’ for ‘umbrella’) 
• say the same word in a number of different ways (e.g., ‘caterpila’, ‘catiperla’, ‘cratapila’ for ‘caterpillar’)

 

What Causes Childhood Apraxia of Speech?

Unfortunately when it comes to Childhood Apraxia of Speech, we don’t often know the exact cause of the condition. We know that for this diagnosis to occur that something is interfering with messages accurately getting from the brain to the mouth muscles, but we don’t always know why that is.  

CAS may be caused by genetic changes – some of which we can identify (e.g. changes to FOXP2 gene) and others which we don’t yet know.  

Some neurodevelopmental or neurogenetic conditions are also associated with CAS. These include, but are not limited to:  

• Down syndrome 
• Autism spectrum disorder 
• Koolen de Vries syndrome 
• Floating harbour syndrome 
• 16p11.2 deletion syndrome. 

Children with these syndromes also have other health, development or cognitive difficulties. In a small number of cases, CAS may be caused by a problem processing food (e.g. galactosaemic) or by damage to the brain from a neurological lesion or stroke. 

 

 

We hope you’ve found this brief guide to Childhood Apraxia of Speech helpful. If you’d like to explore this further with a Speech Pathologist, we’d highly encourage you to reach out to a local clinic. SpeechEase Speech Therapy has clinics based in Townsville and Mackay, otherwise you can search for a local Speech Pathologist in Australia using the Speech Pathology Australia directory.