Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder that first becomes apparent as a young child is learning speech. For reasons not yet fully understood, children with apraxia of speech have great difficulty planning and producing the precise, highly refined and specific series of movements of the tongue, lips, jaw and palate that are necessary for intelligible speech.
Apraxia of speech is sometimes called verbal apraxia, developmental apraxia of speech, or verbal dyspraxia. Following the 2007 ASHA Ad Hoc Committee’s position statement the term childhood apraxia of speech is now most commonly used.
The most important concept is the root word “praxis.” Praxis means planned movement. To some degree or another, a child with the diagnosis of apraxia of speech has difficulty programming and planning speech movements.
Apraxia of speech is a specific speech disorder. This difficulty in planning speech movements is the hallmark or “signature” of childhood apraxia of speech. (Source- Apraxia Kids)