What is verbal dyspraxia?

Verbal dyspraxia is a speech sound disorder that causes problems with sound production. It affects 1–2 in 1,000 children. In a child with verbal dyspraxia, the development of language skills may be affected by their pronunciation issues. More specifically, the child will have trouble producing long, complex sentences.

With verbal dyspraxia, the child is unable to make the movements needed to produce certain sounds. It’s as if the brain is not sending the right instructions to the mouth.

A child with verbal dyspraxia may pronounce a single word in several different ways. For example, “spaghetti” may become “passetti,” “gageggi” or even “teddy.”

Verbal dyspraxia cannot be diagnosed before the age of 5. Before then, the child will be said to have “language difficulties affecting speech sounds and indicators of praxis difficulty.”

Signs

There are many symptoms of verbal dyspraxia. Here are a few:

Infancy (age 2 and under)

• Producing few sounds and speaking very little
• Trouble imitating noises and sounds
• Using gestures to make themselves heard
• Trouble feeding (e.g. choking, trouble sucking)

Early childhood (age 3 and up)

• Trouble being understood because the child frequently mixes up speech sounds
• Inconsistent mistakes when producing speech

Cause

Verbal dyspraxia is a neurological issue present at birth.

Recommendations

If a child is showing symptoms of verbal dyspraxia or any other speech or language disorder, it is best to consult a speech-language pathologist.

A full speech-language assessment can reveal language problems, allowing the speech-language pathologist to develop a personalized treatment plan. Next, targeted speech-language therapy will help the child develop their language skills.