What is Childhood Apraxia of Speech?

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a serious speech disorder that affects a child’s ability to correctly produce syllables and words.  The thing that others notice when the children are young is their very limited and unclear speech.  Children with Apraxia have a problem planning out how to move their lips, mouth, tongue, or jaw to make the words sound correct.  They understand language well enough, but they can’t plan the speech movements to happen at just the right time, in just the right order for the words to come out right.

Why is Talking Hard for Kids with Apraxia?

The act of speaking is really amazing!  It involves our brain, parts of the face, mouth, jaw, muscles around all these parts, and pathways from the brain to the muscles! 

Follow this path to find out how speech happens and where in the process kids with apraxia have trouble.

Team Apraxia is raising money to support children in the Greater Cincinnati area with Apraxia.

Meet Aria

Seven-year-old Aria loves her snuggle buddies, Piggie and Sheepie, who accompanied her to her first surgery.  She is very creative and compassionate making beds for her babies out of any little nook in the house.  She is also very thoughtful of others and makes them feel comfortable and welcome.  Aria is the second oldest of four girls and she greatly enjoys being a big sister to her younger two sisters.

Aria was born with a cleft palate and had her first surgery at 10 months old to create a palate for her.  She had a second surgery at age 2 to revise the palate repair.  She still struggles with her speech and physically cannot make certain sounds without speech therapy help which makes her shy because of her frustration with others not understanding her.

Meet Cohen

Four-year-old Cohen attended preschool part-time this past year and he absolutely loved it.  He is an animal lover, is train-obsessed, a puzzle lover, and loves learning things in general.  He enjoys everything to do with being outdoors as well.

At the age of 17 months, Cohen was diagnosed with Global Developmental Delay and Apraxia of Speech.  He is currently attending private speech and occupational therapy weekly and he is learning so much!  Cohen needs to continue with these therapies in order to further his language development and gross/fine motor skills.  Insurance is not covering these therapy services.

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