Most people don’t have to use that much concentration when they speak. Speaking comes effortlessly and naturally, something that’s easy to do without question. However, this is the opposite of people with Apraxia. Talking can take an incredible amount of concentration leading to overworking ourselves, mental exhaustion, and even burnout.
What is Verbal Apraxia (CAS)?
Let me explain before we go any further. As we know, Verbal Apraxia is a brain disorder where your brain has trouble sending your mouth signals for accurate movements of speech. When those speech signals won’t always come through, you are forced to put more concentration into your speaking, seeing which words will and won’t come out. If you don’t have one word easily accessible, you can pick another to ease your conscious efforts. Speaking requires our focus and concentration, if we like it or not.
What contributes to this?
By paying more attention to how our speech will come out because we have to be mindful, this can take up a significant amount of our concentration. We also have to pay attention to how our lips, tongue, and jaw movements, although they aren’t weak. The concentration we must place on the whole picture of things can be enormous. If others don’t understand us, or if we don’t talk loud enough, it can make us put more concentration into expanding our speech volume or fluency.
Apraxia is layered.
There are different layers to Apraxia that will require our concentration that can lead to overworking ourselves, mental exhaustion, and burnout. I believe this is why we need to give ourselves more time so that we won’t get as quickly burnt out. Speech is something we never take for granted.