The use of Apps in therapy for Childhood Apraxia of Speech
Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder (a disorder that affects motor skills needed to speak). Children with apraxia of speech will have problems saying sounds, syllables, and words. This is due to the brain having problems planning to move the body parts (e.g. lips, jaw, tongue) needed for speech and not because of muscle weakness (dysarthria) or paralysis (inability to move). The child’s understanding is usually good so they will know what they want to say, but their brain has difficulty coordinating the muscles needed to create the movements necessary to say the word.
Children with CAS will make inconsistent sound errors that are not the result of immaturity. They appear to be struggling and groping for words when attempting to speak as they try to coordinate their lips, tongue and jaw purposefully. It is a very diverse condition and is characterized by inconsistency and frequently being resistant to traditional therapy approaches.
Children often show slow progress in therapy and when improvement is seen there is poor generalization from therapy sessions to their everyday environment. This means therapy for CAS needs to be intensive and often is quite long term. Unfortunately it usually involves lots of repetition and drilling of speech sounds frequently in order to help children learn consistent sound production. Due to this therapy needs to be made interesting and stimulating for the child in order to motivate them to keep it up.
One way to make therapy more interesting is by using apps, on an IPad or similar device. Many apps have been created in the last year that are being used as valuable tools for the intensive motor speech drill that is used in CAS therapy. The apps vary in price from around £2 to £200 and are becoming very popular. The use of apps is effective in CAS therapy for many reasons.
These apps:
- are a accessible, portable and exciting way to make therapy more interesting for children
- encourage the practice of target sound sequences frequently without upset/stress because the child wants to use the I Pad.
- make it easy for the child to rotate between activities e.g. verbal and non-verbal activities or alternating the communication demand giving a feel of success and improvement while working on more difficult sound sequences.
- make therapy practice multi-sensory. Built in speakers and microphones mean children can hear a secure auditory model and compare their own sound productions to it. The visual cues given are of good quality and children can themselves touch/tap the screen to indicate an answer.
- can even provide positive and negative feedback in the form of cheers, claps and groans.
Along side therapy I Pads can also be used as a form of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system. If the apraxia is making the child’s speech too difficult to understand then I pads can be used to support speech and once their speech improves the use of the devices can lessen.
I Pads can be used in therapy for many different conditions and disorders. If you think using apps could help your child or someone you know then you can contact the team at Integrated Treatment Services for advice. You can call us on: 0845 838 2921 or simply email info@integratedtreatments.co.uk. We will discuss what therapy your child is currently having and what we could do to help support them further.
Laura Oldakowska
Speech and Language Therapist
May 2013
Flickr: Image Credit: Sean MacEntree – CC Licensed
