Apraxia of speech is a motor speech disorder. The messages from the brain to the mouth are disrupted, and the person cannot move his lips or tongue to the right place to say sounds correctly, even though the muscles are not weak. The severity of apraxia depends on the nature of the brain damage.
Learn more about comprehensive pathological services offered at Speech and Feeding Centre, tailored to your specific needs.
Individuals with apraxia of speech know what words they want to say, but their brains have difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say all the sounds in the words or move smoothly between sounds.
Apraxia of speech is caused by damage to the parts of the brain that control coordinated muscle movement, such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, brain tumors, and progressive neurological disorders.
We can diagnose apraxia of speech and determine the nature and severity of the condition using a variety of assessment methods. We will then plan a programme to help our client improve the planning, sequencing, and coordination of muscle movements for speech production. The muscles of speech often need to be “retrained” to produce sounds correctly and sequence sounds into words. In severe cases, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) such as electronic picture or word devices may be necessary to help our client communicate.
