Knowledge Bank

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a rare neurological motor speech disorder characterized by a core deficit in speech motor planning and programming. Unlike children with other speech disorders, such as phonological disorder or articulation disorder, children with CAS make slow progress in therapy and often receive intervention services for many years. The goal of this project was to explore whether early indicators of CAS differentiate groups of children with persisting versus resolving CAS. Children with persisting CAS are expected to meet speech developmental milestones later and show more associated risk factors than children with resolving CAS. Ten children met current inclusionary criteria for persisting CAS by showing five or more CAS features across at least two tasks. Ten additional children had a verified history of CAS but did not currently show more than four CAS features, suggesting that CAS may be resolving. This retrospective analysis compared these two groups to a control group of 20 children with typical development (TD). The current investigation analyzed parent-reported data of age of onset for babbling, first words, two-word combinations, and the presence of family history of speech, language, or reading disorders, comorbid diagnoses, and birth complications. Results showed that the CAS group differed from the TD group in the onset of first words, two-word combinations, and the presence of comorbid conditions. There were no significant differences between the persisting and resolving CAS groups. The outcomes of this study contribute to existing literature by highlighting certain predictive indicators that can differentiate children with CAS and TD.