Apraxia Flashcards
Apraxia of Speech (AOS) DEFINITION
Neurogenic speech sound disorder.
Characterized by problems with volitional movements for speech production, in the absence of muscle weakness, fatigue, or paralysis.
NEUROPATHOLOGY apraxia
Due to injury/damage to speech-motor programming areas of the language-dominant hemisphere. Broca’s area
Typically areas in the left frontal or parietal lobes.
More commonly result from stroke.
ASSOCIATED SYMPTOMS apraxia
Typically with Broca’s aphasia and often nonverbal oral apraxia and reduced oral sensation.
COMMUNICATION DEFICITS apraxia
Significant difficulty with on-command sequencing of movements for speech, relative to automatic speech.
Delayed initiation for speech, with articulatory groping (using a slow rate to compensate).
Inconsistent speech errors (with correct attempts on occasion).
Speech sound errors (e.g., voiceless for voiced, schwa insertion, anticipatory substitutions); consonants more affected than vowels.
More difficulty with longer words.
Aprosodic.
ASSESSMENT for apraxia
ASSESSMENT
Typically involves the following tasks, with some included in Apraxia Battery for Adults (ABA):
Phonetic transcription of speech sample (e.g. conversation, picture description).
Imitative/repeated production of speech sound, syllable, multiple syllables (i.e. DDK), progressively longer words (e.g., bake, baker, bakery).
Automatic speech tasks (e.g., days of the week; months of the year; counting 1-20).
Oral reading.
Evaluate for limb apraxia (e.g., wave hello, salute goodbye).
TREATMENT
TARGETS
Articulatory accuracy, slow rate with gradual increase, normal prosody.
e.g., Sound Production Treatment (SPT), or treatment approaches applied for above with other populations.
Focus on the following for greater generalization when treating aphasia
Difficult > easier, automatic/high frequency words.
Speech > non-speech movements.
Drills on variety of sounds and sound combinations.
Total communication (e.g., gestures, writing, AAC).
