Childhood apraxia of speech is a neurological motor speech disorder that affects a child's ability to produce syllables and words because the brain doesn't communicate with the muscles of the mouth, face, tongue and jaw, which are needed for speech.

Children with CAS know what they want to say, but their brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say those words.The cause of CAS is unknown because most often, no specific cause is found.Not all children with CAS are the same, so it is important to have a child evaluated by a speech-language pathologist to rule out other causes of speech problems.General things to look for include:A very young child• Does not coo or babble as an infant.• First words are late, and they may be missing sounds.• Only a few different consonant and vowel sounds.• Problems combining sounds; may show long pauses between sounds.• Simplifies words by replacing difficult sounds with easier ones or by deleting difficult sounds.• May have problems eating.An older child• Makes inconsistent sound errors that are not the result of immaturity.• Can understand language much better than they can talk.• Has difficulty imitating speech, but imitated speech is more clear than spontaneous speech.• May appear to be groping when attempting to produce sounds or to coordinate the lips, tongue and jaw for purposeful movement.• Has more difficulty saying longer words or phrases clearly than shorter ones.• Appears to have more difficulty when he or she is anxious.• Is hard to understand, especially for an unfamiliar listener.• Sounds choppy, monotonous or stresses the wrong syllable or word.Potential problems• Delayed language development.• Other expressive language problems like word order confusions and word recall.• Difficulties with fine motor movement/coordination.• Hypersensitive or hyposensitive in their mouths. (May not like toothbrushing or crunchy foods, may not be able to identify an object in their mouth through touch.)• Children with CAS or other speech problems may have problems when learning to read, spell and write.Sources: American Speech-Language Hearing Association and Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America