So I finally have a “name” for what Gideon’s speech delay is called, and this makes sense. Its called Apracia of Speech
Below are a couple clips from the article explaining a few things.
Gideon is doing well and LOVES therapy with Kim, Sharri and Gaylen. He’s doing well. However, it all ends with them at age three. This will be tough and we must decide what to do next. He will most likely qualify for a little preschool here in town along with speech, so we will need to look into that as a possibility for him.
“Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is
considered a neurological speech disor-
der that affects a child’s ability to
clearly and correctly produce syllables
and words. The most obvious thing
that others notice is that the child has
significantly limited and/or unclear
speech.”
“The act of speaking is a highly sophisticated one!
It involves processes of our brain and it also in-
volves muscles of the mouth, face, tongue, and
soft palate as well as all of the pathways in be-
tween the brain and the muscles.
We start with an idea of what we want to say.
Then, subconsciously, we have to correctly as-
semble the string of sounds and words. Next, we
must create a movement plan or “program” that is
associated with those sounds and words. Along
with planning for which speech muscles should
move and in what order,
we must assign the cor-
rect timing and force for activating the muscles
needed to produce the speech. Finally we transmit
those speech movement plans to the actual mus-
cles that help us speak.
This all happens in a time shorter than the blink
of an eye. It is thought that children with apraxia
of speech have difficulty in creating, transmitting
or storing the speech
movement plans.”
