Verbal Dyspraxia
Dyspraxia is a condition in which messages are not efficiently transmitted to parts of the body. This can result in clumsiness, difficulty in running, jumping, throwing and catching, and problems with writing. 2% of the population suffer from Dyspraxia. See the Dyspraxia Foundation websitefor more information.
Sometimes, dyspraxia includes speech problems, called verbal dyspraxia. Speech may be jumbled and difficult to understand. A child may find it difficult to carry out rapid repetitive movements, such as saying "b-b-b," or "pitter-patter-pitter-patter". He may only have a few sounds at his disposal, which he uses instead of the range of over 40 sounds used in adult speech.
Verbal dyspraxia can range from a mild difficulty that appears only as slightly unclear speech when a child is talking quickly, to a disorder that makes his speech impossible to understand.
If your child has speech that is very difficult to understand, contains only a few sounds, or is linked with difficulty in dressing himself, remembering things or learning bike-riding or ball skills, he may have verbal dyspraxia. Ask for a speech and language assessment.
Children with moderate or severe verbal dyspraxia will benefit from very regular practice of a carefully graded series of exercises, set by a speech and language therapist. If the dyspraxia also includes difficulties in other areas than speech, a programme set by an occupational therapist would be helpful.