Childhood Apraxia of Speech | Treatment Ideas and Exercises

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What is Childhood Apraxia of Speech and why does it matter?

Carrie Clark 0:00

Hey there, you are listening to episode 59 of the Speech and Language Kids podcast. This is the podcast with resources and activities for speech and language therapists, as well as for parents of children with speech and language delays. I'm Keri Clark, I'm your host, and we will be talking today about childhood apraxia of speech. We are going to specifically be talking about some therapy activities that you can do to work on improving speech production in kiddos with childhood apraxia of speech. I'm gonna call that CAS, that's our abbreviation. So whenever I say CAS, I'm talking about my apraxia. So today I'm just gonna be listing off a whole bunch of different activities you can do in speech therapy for kiddos with CAS.

Carrie Clark 0:45

You could also be using these activities at home if you are a parent of a child with CAS. And I'm going to break them down by level. So I'm going to talk about what level the student is working at. in terms of what kinds of speech skills they already have and what they need to work on next. So we're gonna be talking about all of that. But before we get to that, I do want to give a shout out to my membership site, The Speech Therapy Solution. If you are not familiar with that site, it is actually where a lot of this content that I'm gonna show you today, that's where a lot of this came from. So in the membership site, you get daily training videos for speech therapists that answer questions that you have about speech therapy.

Carrie Clark 1:26

And then once a month, I do a webinar. And last February, the members of my group asked for some speech therapy activities for apraxia. So I did an hour long webinar that was just chocked full of different activities that they could do to work on speech sounds for these kiddos with CAS. And it went really, really well. And there was a lot of really good information in there. So that's part of what I wanted to share with you today. So I am just gonna be giving you a few of the activities that we talked about on that webinar. But if you want more information, the recording of that webinar is still available for the members. So if you're a speech therapist, you can go over and sign up for the membership.

Carrie Clark 2:07

You get access to that recording along with all the other webinars we've done, plus all of the training videos I've done, which, gosh, it's like 200 or 300 at this point. So there's a ton of really good information in there. There should be something about just about everything you're having trouble with. So head on over to speechandlanguagekids.com slash TSTS and that will allow you to sign up for that membership site and get access to all of the webinar recordings and all the great videos. Okay, so let's jump on in with our content today. So we're talking about improving speech sound production in children with childhood apraxia of speech. If you are unfamiliar with apraxia or CAS, there are other resources on my website where you can learn more about apraxia.

Carrie Clark 2:54

So you can head over to the website. If you go to browse by topic, you can pick childhood apraxia of speech, and there's some really good information there. So head on over there if you're not familiar, but if you are familiar, let's just kind of jump in with some activities and ideas of things that you can do to be helping these kiddos produce speech sounds. We know that children with childhood apraxia of speech really have trouble with the motor planning part of speech. So it's not that they don't know what to say or that they

How can parents and therapists access free resources and PDFs for CAS?

Carrie Clark 3:25

are saying it wrong because they don't know the better way. It's that they're trying to say it right and it's coming out wrong. So there is a wiring problem with the motor planning. So the therapy activities that we need to do for these kiddos is slightly different than the type of therapy we would do for kiddos who just say have problems with articulation or phonology. So in order to get us started, I have created a PDF that you can download that is the skill sets charts for childhood apraxia of speech. And this is going to break down a nice order that will help you determine what speech skill to work on based on what they're already able to do.

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Chapters

8 chapters

1 What is Childhood Apraxia of Speech and why does it matter? 0:00–3:25 2 How can parents and therapists access free resources and PDFs for CAS? 3:25–7:09 3 What are Level 1 activities for children who can’t yet imitate speech sounds? 7:09–10:24 4 Which functional sound and vocalization games help kids move from actions to speech? 10:24–13:32 5 How do you teach two‑sound words (CV/VC) to children with CAS? 13:32–16:56 6 What strategies build longer word strings and improve articulatory transitions? 16:56–20:56 7 How can you add new sounds or structures to existing words for advanced practice? 20:56–23:59 8 What are the final steps for achieving sound accuracy in connected speech? 23:59–26:15

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Carrie Clark 24 min

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iTunes 1 Stitcher 1 Speech and Language Kids podcast 2 speechandlanguagekids.com 4 Keri Clark 2 Childhood apraxia of speech 1 Speech Therapy Solution 2 Speech Therapy Storm of the Brains podcast 1

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Recorded09 May 2016

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Childhood Apraxia of Speech | Treatment Ideas and ExercisesChildhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder where a child knows what they want to say but the sounds won’t come up correctly. We can help children with CAS with speech therapy activities and exercises to boost motor speech skills. On this page, we’ll give you information about childhood apraxia of speech how speech therapy exercises can help those children improve their speech skills Motor Speech CurriculumA Structured Program for Improving Speech Clarity for Children with Apraxia and Other Motor Speech DisordersView the Motor Speech CurriculumWhat is Childhood Apraxia of Speech?Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a rare, neurologically-based speech disorder where the child knows what he wants to say but the message gets mixed up in the motor-planning and execution phase so the sounds come out all wrong. What are the Symptoms of Childhood Apraxia of Speech?Though the diagnosis of CAS is relatively new, experts have agreed that CAS usually includes these 3 generally-agreed upon components: Inconsistent errors on consonants and vowels in repeated productions of syllables or words(meaning that if the child says the same word many times, it may sound differently each time) Lengthened and disrupted coarticulatory transitions (meaning that the child’s speech sounds choppy or disconnected due to trouble transitioning between sounds or between words in older children) Inappropriate prosody, especially in the realization of lexical or phrasal stress between sounds and syllables (meaning that the rhythm, intonation, and stress of speech may sound off, the child may sound robotic, have incorrect phrasing, or stress the wrong words or syllables) Listen to the Podcast on Childhood Apraxia of Speech: Sometimes it can be difficult to know exactly what you should be working on with your children with childhood apraxia of speech. In this podcast episode, I break down speech sound learning in different levels. Then, I give practical therapy activities that can be used for each level. Click the play button below to listen to the entire episode. Or, scroll down to see the notes below. PreviewHow to Do Speech Therapy for Apraxia of Speech:Apraxia of Speech Level 1: Imitating Actions Start Here For… Children who are unable to imitate speech sounds Children who are not tuned in enough to work on anything during sessions Children who have emotional issues and are not willing to work with you on their speech during sessions Therapy Activities Do a reinforcer probe and offer those preferred reinforcers if the child imitates a basic action like clapping hands, stomping feet, raising hands, etc. Take pictures that represent the actions you want the child to do and print them on cards. Have the child draw one card from a bag and do that action. Make a movie on your phone where the child is your shadow and imitates what you do (do it in reverse as well). Apraxia of Speech Level 2: Functional Sounds, Sound Effects, Vocalizations Start Here For… Children who are able to imitate actions but unable to imitate or produce sound combinations (like CV, VC) Children who need a little confidence boost before working on sound combinations (this could be mixed in) Therapy Activities Play with vehicles and make engine sounds (or sirens). Feed puppets or stuffed animals and have them make exaggerated “mmmm” noises. Have the child request pieces to an animal puzzle by making that animal’s noise (reduce complex noises down to one sound, like “eee” for monkey). Apraxia of Speech Level 3: Sound Combinations (CV, VC) Start Here For… Children who are able to imitate or produce some sounds but are not yet spontaneously combining 2 sounds, like consonant- vowel or vowel-consonant Children who are doing some sound combinations on their own but can’t say very many (or enough to communicate much) Therapy Activities Get some sort of a riding toy like a bike or a swing and stop the child until he says “go” again. Throw small objects up onto a higher surface (like a table), each time, have the child say “up” to indicate he wants another thing to throw up. Put coins in a piggy bank and have the child say “in” to get each coin to indicate he wants to put it in. Apraxia of Speech Level 4: Repeated Strings of CV or VC Start Here For… Children who are able to combine a vowel and consonant together but are not yet producing longer utterances Children who are doing some CV, VC, and CVCV combinations on their own but can’t say very many (or enough to communicate much) Therapy Activities Sequence words that the child can do together to work on articulatory transitions (the same word repeatedly or alternating two words together). String together several of a word that the child can say and then add a word that the child can’t say to the end that only varies by one sound (bow, bow, bow, boy). Apraxia of Speech Level 5: Add a Structure, Add a Sound Start Here For… Children who are able to say some limited structures (like CV, VC, and CVCV) but struggles to say longer or more complex words Children who are able to use some sounds in CV, VC, and CVCV structures but not very many Therapy Activities Increase vowels by sequencing pictures together that start with the same consonant and change the vowel, like “boy, bee, bay, bow, bow”, etc. Lay the cards in a row and have the student say the sequence. Increase consonants by using the same vowel and changing the consonant, like “me, tea, key, pea, we, see”. Increase structures by taking a known word and adding a sound like, “key…keep, pea…peep, we…weep”. Apraxia of Speech Level 6: Sound Accuracy in Phrases and Sentences Start Here For… Children who are able to produce single words of many structures with good speech sound accuracy but intelligibility decreases in phrases and sentences Therapy Activities Create worksheets similar to the previous section where you provide the pictures and they glue them on, but this time, build sentences, like “see..(next line)..I see…I see cat…I see the cat”. Use one carrier phrase and fill it with different words that the child has mastered, like “I see bat, I see cat, I see hat, I see mat”. Use flip books if you have them or make your own. Apraxia of Speech Level 7: Sound Accuracy in Connected Speech Start Here For… Children who are able to produce sounds correctly in simple sentences and phrases but intelligibility decreases in connected speech Therapy Activities (work on speaking clearly in tasks with increasing complexity, don’t move on until the previous level is clear) Have the child describe pictures using full sentences (“the girl is walking her dog in the park”). Have the child complete automatic speech tasks like saying the pledge of allegiance or the months of the year. Have the child answer open-ended questions like “tell me about your last birthday party”. Have the child read a short paragraph. Have a conversation with the child about a specific topic with the expectation that you will be listening for his speech sounds. Listen for correct speech sounds in conversational speech and correct using feedback as needed. A Structured Curriculum for Motor Speech Disorders:Children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) require a different approach to speech therapy than other children. Our Motor Speech Curriculum is specifically designed with the principles of motor learning in mind. This Curriculum includes everything you need to improve speech clarity using a motor speech approach. Motor Speech CurriculumA Structured Program for Improving Speech Clarity for Children with Apraxia and Other Motor Speech DisordersView the Motor Speech CurriculumAbout the Author: Carrie Clark, MA CCC-SLPHi, I’m Carrie! I’m a speech-language pathologist from Columbia, Missouri, USA. I’ve worked with children and teenagers of all ages in schools, preschools, and even my own private practice. I love digging through the research on speech and language topics and breaking it down into step-by-step plans for my followers. Connect with Me: The post Childhood Apraxia of Speech | Treatment Ideas and Exercises appeared first on Speech And Language Kids.

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