Apraxia

Adult Service Areas

Treating stuttering (dysfluency), kids playing together

Apraxia of speech in adults is a motor speech disorder. It is characterized by a difficulty in planning the movements of the lips, tongue and vocal cords used to produce speech. Apraxia in adults is often the result of stroke, brain tumour, or head trauma.

Adults suffering from apraxia know what they want to say, but their speech muscles are unable to form the sounds. Groping of the lips and tongue when attempting to produce speech sounds is a hallmark symptom.

At Speech Pathways, our overall goal when working with individuals who have apraxia is to improve their ability to communicate. We develop non-verbal communication strategies to provide the individual some form of expressive outlet, while we work on retraining verbal speech (through oral motor training and progressive verbal approximations).