Abstract:

Developmental apraxia of speech is a serious neurodevelopmental disorder that frequently complicates the preschool and school education of children with developmental deficits. A terminologically accepted international concept, he also prefers the term "Childhood Apraxia of Speech" (CAS) ( Fisch, Skinder-Meredith 2023; McLeod, Baker 2017, Neubauer, et all 2018), emphasizing a deficit in the area of spontaneous speech expression. The essence of the emergence of CAS is not a motor coordination deficit, but a disorder of the programming of speech articulate expression, the localization of the central nervous system (CNS) lesion is connected with the secondary motor cortex, premotor association areas. It includes programming disorders of speech elements, sounds, syllables, their confusion, omission or perseveration. These manifestations are not constant and do not primarily include disorders of other motor speech activities. More serious manifestations of CAS, which often coexist with another neurodevelopmental deficit (for example, specific language impairment SLI), require a specifically focused educational program, including motor speech stimulation and perceptive phonological procedures in the preschool and school education program.
The program of the preparatory year before the start of compulsory school attendance, which is implemented by the Elementary and Special School at the General Faculty Hospital (VFN) in Prague, together with the Phoniatrics Clinic of the 1st Faculty of Medicine of Charles University (1.LF UK) and the VFN for children with neurodevelopmental disorders, is focused on adequate educational, diagnostic and therapeutic multidisciplinary care for these children.
The pilot study approximates the treatment of a group of 6 children (average age 7 years) with SLI associated with CAS symptomatology, which includes diagnostic and educational procedures focused on the presence of CAS symptomatology, motor speech and perceptive phonological education procedures and their evaluation. The investigation took place in the period 02 – 06 2023 with the participation of a qualified pedagogue for preschool education and a qualified clinical speech therapist.
The study, in the form of a qualitative analysis of a multiple case study, approximates the use of a set for the diagnostic evaluation of speech ("Diagnostics of speech expression/impression and language/phonological screening", Neubauer, Koblásová, 2019) the involvement of the Czech research version "Dynamic Evaluation of Motor Speech Skill" (DEMSS; Strand, McCauley, 2019) based on the procedure of this examination in the Czech language. The presented results show qualitatively the influence of the implemented procedures stimulation of motor speech and methods of perceptual phonological education and the need for a comprehensive evaluation of the symptomatology of CAS in pupils in the preparatory year program before the start of compulsory schooling for children with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Bibliography:
[1] Fish M, Skinder-Meredith A (2023ú Childhood Apraxia of Speech. San Diego: Plural Publ.
[2] McLeod S, Barer E (2017) Children’s Speech. Boston: Pearson
[3] Neubauer K, et all. (2018) Kompendium klinické logopedie, Praha: Portál
[4] Neubauer K, Koblásová D Program rozvoje artikulace u dětí předškolního věku. In Štúdie zo špeciálnej pedagogiky, 2. 8, Prešovská univerzita v Prešove. 71-81 p. ISSN 2585-7363
[5] Strand E, Mccauley R (2019) Dynamic Evaluation of Motor Speech Skill. DEMSS. Baltimore: Brokes Publ.

Keywords:

Childhood Apraxia of Speech, Preschool education, Specific language impairment, neurodevelopmental disorders, perceptual phonological education.