Online Childhood Apraxia of Speech Therapy
A child's ability to communicate facilitates learning, confidence and all kinds of opportunities.
Childhood Apraxia of Speech & eLuma
eLuma offers unparalleled online speech therapy solutions for treating childhood apraxia of speech. We know that the key to helping these students is to first see and then unlock their incredible potential, but it all starts with their ability to communicate. Our speech-language pathologists (SLPs) can provide all of the same required services live and online, through a fully-secure, HIPAA-compliant platform, as they can in person — and can do so with a high degree of effectiveness, efficiency and flexibility. We love working with these kids and find great satisfaction in seeing them progress and succeed.
What is Childhood Apraxia of Speech?
Childhood apraxia of speech is a motor speech disorder that affects the planning of muscle movements. It impacts the consistency and precision of movements, without underlying neuromuscular impairments such as abnormal tone or reflexes. Students with apraxia exhibit errors in the production of speech sounds and prosody (intonation, stress, tone, and rhythm) of speech.
Children with apraxia do not develop speech sounds in a typical order and require treatment to improve their ability to be understood. Some signs of apraxia include:
- Inconsistency of speech sound errors
- Errors of the stress placed on syllables and words
- Sound distortions
- More difficulty producing longer words than shorter ones
They may also be present with difficulties in other areas, such as:
- Delayed language
- Fine motor skill deficits
- Difficulty with reading, writing, and spelling
The cause of apraxia is generally unknown, but in some cases may be caused by brain damage due to a genetic disorder, traumatic brain injury, or stroke.
Treating Childhood Apraxia of Speech
eLuma’s treatment for childhood apraxia of speech focuses on capitalizing on the individual’s strengths, improving functional skills, and creating support systems to help compensate for deficits. The eLuma online speech therapy team and the individual Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) play an important role in helping the students progress.
Treatment of apraxia focuses on improving the consistency of speech sound productions and accurate planning of oral muscle movements. Multi-modal cueing (verbal/visual/tactile) is often used by SLPs to help children develop the skills needed for accurate sound production. In some cases, alternative or augmentative communication may also be used to help support communication when a student’s speech intelligibility is severely impaired.
The eLuma team works in collaboration with the student’s interdisciplinary team, which may include: the special education administrators, the general education teacher, special education teacher, occupational therapist, physical therapist, and/or mental health professional.
Sources:
- For more information on Childhood Apraxia of Speech, visit ASHA at: https://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/childhood-apraxia-of-speech/
Get a Free Consultation
If you have questions about online school based speech therapy and how it works, we invite you to check out our Why Online Therapy and How Online Therapy Works pages to learn more about how effective, affordable, and popular it really is.
If you want to learn more about how eLuma’s online speech therapy services can help your school district, we’re happy to provide a free consultation to talk through your specific needs.
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