If your child has been diagnosed with apraxia, or you suspect it, here is the most important thing to know: apraxia responds to the right kind of practice, and the people best positioned to provide that practice are not found in a clinic. They are found at your kitchen table.

What Is Childhood Apraxia of Speech?

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder. The child’s brain has difficulty planning and coordinating the precise movements of the lips, tongue, and jaw needed to produce speech. It is not a problem with the muscles themselves, and it is not a problem with understanding language. A child with apraxia typically understands far more than they can say.

That gap between what a child understands and what a child can express is one of the defining features of apraxia, and one of the most frustrating for children and parents alike.

Common Signs of Apraxia in Young Children

Apraxia looks different from child to child, but parents often notice some combination of the following:

• Limited babbling as a baby, or a very quiet infancy
• A big gap between what the child understands and what the child can say
• Inconsistent errors: the same word comes out differently from one attempt to the next
• Difficulty with longer words, with sounds dropping out or getting scrambled
• Groping movements of the mouth as the child works to position it for a sound
• Unusual rhythm or stress in speech, with words sounding flat or choppy
• A word or phrase may “pop out” clearly one time, but then is never repeated or used again
• Frustration, meltdowns, or giving up on talking when they cannot make themselves understood

Apraxia or Speech Delay? Why the Difference Matters

A speech delay means a child is developing speech along the typical path, just more slowly. Given time and good input, many late talkers catch up.

Apraxia is different. It is not a slower version of the typical path. It is a breakdown in motor planning, and it does not resolve on its own. “Wait and see” is the one approach that reliably fails with apraxia, because the child is not simply behind. The brain needs specific, repeated practice to build the motor pathways for speech.

This is why early, consistent intervention matters so much. The younger the brain, the more readily it changes. But the brain can change at any age, and it is never too late to start.

Why Frequency Changes Everything

Here is the problem with the standard model of help: motor learning does not happen once or twice a week.

Think about how a child learns to walk, or how anyone learns to play the piano or shoot a free throw. Nobody masters a motor skill by practicing for thirty minutes on Tuesdays. Motor pathways are built through short bursts of practice repeated every single day, hundreds and then thousands of correct repetitions that gradually become automatic.

Speech is the most complex motor activity a human being performs. For a child with apraxia, whose brain struggles to plan those movements, frequency is not a nice-to-have. It is the mechanism. The right input, delivered with sufficient frequency, intensity, and duration, is what drives the brain to build new connections. This is neuroplasticity, and it is the foundation of everything NACD has done for 47+ years.

A weekly session, no matter how skilled the person running it, simply cannot supply the repetitions an apraxic brain needs. What can? A parent.

The Parent Advantage

Parents are with their child every day. Parents know their child’s sounds, moods, motivations, and limits better than anyone on earth. When a parent is trained and equipped to run short, targeted speech practice throughout the day, the child gets what the clinic model cannot deliver: daily frequency, in the child’s own environment, from the person the child most wants to communicate with.

This is the core of NACD’s approach to every child, and it is especially powerful with apraxia. NACD evaluates the whole child, identifies exactly where the breakdown is happening, and then designs a program the family implements at home with coaching and support. The parent becomes the intervention, and the results compound day after day.

For families who want to understand this approach in depth, The NACD Approach walks through it step by step in free, self-paced lessons.

Practicing at Home: The Speech Therapy for Apraxia Apps

To put daily practice directly into parents’ hands, NACD developed a family of four apps out of decades of clinical work with apraxic children. Each app targets a specific stage of speech development, so practice meets the child exactly where they are and builds from there:

• Speech Therapy for Apraxia builds the foundation, developing consistent production of core sounds and simple syllables.
• Speech Therapy for Apraxia: Words moves sounds into functional single words.
• Speech Therapy for Apraxia: 2-Syllables tackles the jump to two-syllable words, where apraxic speech often breaks down.
• Speech Therapy for Apraxia: Ending Sounds targets final consonants, the sounds that make words complete and intelligible.

The apps are designed for short, frequent sessions that a parent and child do together. A few focused minutes, several times a day, is exactly the practice pattern an apraxic brain needs, and it fits inside real family life.

The apps are a powerful tool on their own. They are most powerful as part of an individualized NACD program built around your specific child.

Where to Start

Every child with apraxia is different, which is why NACD does not have a one-size-fits-all apraxia program. We build each program around the individual child, after we understand how that child is functioning across the board.

If you are wondering whether NACD is the right fit for your family, our free Fit Check takes just a few minutes. And when you are ready to take the first step, join our free Get Started program. You will get videos explaining our approach and a free interview with our staff before any cost is involved.

Your child has something to say. Let’s help them say it.

Frequently Asked Questions

The post Childhood Apraxia of Speech: What It Is and How Parents Can Help at Home appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nacd-speech-apraxia/id1625372283

Ogden, Utah
July 30, 2022

The National Association for Child Development, an innovator in all aspects of child development since 1979, announced today the re-release of their very effective and successful app that addresses Childhood Apraxia of Speech/dyspraxia, as well as apraxia of speech in adults.

This very successful and fun tool has been used by parents, individuals, and speech therapists alike. With the Speech Therapy for Apraxia app, targeted speech therapy can now be accomplished on a daily basis right at home. Frequent application fulfills one of the basic requirements needed to trigger neuroplasticity and produce real change.
In keeping with NACD’s mission to provide affordable services and tools to families around the world, this comprehensive app is being made available for only $9.99

Speech Therapy for Apraxia app reflects NACD’s decades of international work with tens of thousands of children and their quest to find, develop, and utilize better and better tools to assist families in helping their children develop to their full potential.

Speech Therapy for Apraxia is one of a series of speech apraxia apps being re-introduced by the National Association for Child Development. These apps are developed by NACD’s team, including a certified speech-language pathologist.

“It was important to us to develop an app that parents can use at home for speech practice with their children, but that is also an effective tool for therapists. The emphasis of the app is the child’s production. The parent or therapist should be an active participant in order to provide the user with feedback, reinforcement, and additional modeling.” Lori Riggs, Speech-Language Pathologist at NACD.

This comprehensive app permits targeted application and includes the following features:

• The user can choose from 8 different consonant groups- a total of 19 consonant sounds.
• Customization permits the user to practice at a chosen level within each group.
• Detailed instructions describe how to choose appropriate groups and levels.
• Moves through a progression of 8 levels for speech motor planning.
• There are illustrations and audio provided for each syllable.
• Includes options that permit the user to repeat levels, reset, or move to the next level.
• Can be used as a straight articulation drill for specific phonemes.
• Simple enough for a parent or adult user to progress through by themselves, but comprehensive enough for a therapist to incorporate into their targeted program.

The app is not intended for independent use by children.

“For decades we at NACD have had the goal to educate and assist both parents and professionals in order to develop and modify present therapeutic interventions. Successful application of neuroplasticity requires targeted high frequency, preferably daily intervention, to achieve desired outcomes. Part of our mission has been to develop systems and tools to assist in accomplishing this goal.” Bob Doman, Founder and Director of NACD.

About NACD

The National Association for Child Development is a unique organization with a distinctive family centered approach to child development. Founded in 1979 by Bob Doman, NACD has worked internationally to help tens of thousands of families remediate developmental issues and enhance the development and global function of their children. NACD has developed an approach to human development, the achievement of human potential, and the remediation of developmental, educational, and neurological problems that is based on the gestalt of the whole individual and an understanding of neuroplasticity. The efficacy of NACD’s Targeted Developmental Intervention has been demonstrated with the full range of individuals, from comatose to gifted.

NACD designs comprehensive targeted interventions that are implemented by family and caregivers within the home on a daily basis, supported and overseen by NACD’s staff of professionals and coaches. NACD has evaluation sites around the United States and internationally.

The post NACD’s critically acclaimed app for treating apraxia has been re-released appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.