Apraxia Therapy: It's all about the movement

The focus of apraxia therapy is on the movement

I attended an advanced CAS workshop with Dr. Edythe Strand.  Dr. Strand is well known is the field of CAS treatment.  She created an evidenced based treatment program called DTTC, which stands for Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing. The focus of the treatment for motor speech disorders is on the movement, rather then the individual sounds.  It focuses on shaping accurate movements, from one sound to the next, to produce the target words.

 "Stimuli words are a vehicle for practicing movement patterns" Dr. Strand

Therefore, if children with motor speech disorders are having difficulty combining the movements with the other subsystems such as voice, resonance and phonation, then TAKE OUT THE VOICE.

Mime the word and have the child mime along with you to learn the movement. Then try adding back in the voice with a slow rate and simultaneous production. 

The child may need to stay in the initial configuration (movement) for a little time to feel what the articulators (tongue, lips and jaw), should be doing. For example; If the word is "me", the child will be instructed to closed their lips and stay in that position for a little time so that the child can feel the movement.

Initially, it is beneficial to move slowly through the word so the child can process the movements. 

Dr. Strand encouraged us to speak to our clients, who have motor speech disorders, about movement with phrases such as "we are working on movement" and "making movement better so we can speak better".  

Click here for a video with more information on this topic.

Click here for a handout to learn more about cues for improving motor speech skills.

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