As children grow, we expect them to have more and more speech sounds.  By age 6, children should have all their speech sounds. Persistent errors for S, L and R may indicate an orofacial myofunctional disorder. Children with phonological disorders are at risk for reading impairments as it can be an indicator of a weak sound system. 

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Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)

CAS is a motor planning difficulty. The brain has difficulty planning and making speech movement involving the tongue, lips and/or jaw. It is a difficulty transitioning between sounds. The child may know how to make all the speech sounds but has difficulty putting sounds together. As a result, the child may have inconsistent errors for sounds depending on what other sounds are in the word. The number of sounds put together (length) and the word shape (complexity) will affect the child’s ability to say speech sounds. 

• Children with CAS can also have articulation/phonological speech errors 

• Often the ability to understand language is intact but their difficulty putting sounds together affects their verbal output 

• They tend to say a word differently each time they say it 

• These children have difficulty with prosody and may lack intonation when they talk 

• They are at risk for reading challenges 

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I have training in the Dynamic Tactile and Temporal Cueing approach to treat Apraxia