Verbal Apraxia is still poorly misunderstood by professionals today. While we are making progress, we still have a long way to go. A factor I see that people don’t take into much consideration is that Apraxia is, in fact, a brain disorder. It’s more than just a person having trouble with articulation.
I express this with the concern that we aren’t treating Apraxia in its entirety. In my opinion, we are addressing the surface levels of Apraxia. We are attempting to perfect the child’s speech, where nobody else prior can tell they have a speech disorder. In most cases, this is the goal. We have this mission to beat Apraxia. However, I believe this isn’t the message we should be sending out. I think we should be teaching people how to properly cope with Apraxia because Apraxia is more than the articulation issues.
If you’ve watched a video or two of mine, I will most commonly express how Apraxia is a speech disorder where your brain has trouble sending signals to your mouth to articulate words; this is what makes Apraxia a brain disorder. The person has those connection issues you can’t observe and can’t note. Sometimes professionals will, and they’ll report them in “gaps in between questions or words.” In my experience, this was my case until I could self-report.
Apraxia being a brain disorder, makes it all more complicated. It puts more pressure on the person to get those speech responses out, which can lead to complicated feelings surrounding their speech. They can think , “I wish this word would just come out already or more clearly.” Resulting in a not so neutral place with their speech.
We can treat the surface levels of Apraxia. However, until we address Apraxia in its entirety, we will just be treating the articulation struggles.