Welcome to part one of my interview with Dr. Edythe Strand. Edythe was a professor at Mayo College, former head of Division of Speech Pathology, Department of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic, and a practicing Speech Pathologist and clinician. Her research has focused on developmental, acquired, and progressive Apraxia speech.

What are the characteristics of Apraxia? Edythe noted that Apraxia is not a medical diagnosis but rather a label for a speech sound disorder. Different from other speech disorders, Apraxia affects the movement needed to make a sound. Characteristics might include, difficulty programming and planning, movement gestures, awkward movement through a movement transition, mistiming, blending of manner, distorted sounds, intrusive schwa, inconsistency in the context of repeated production.

Therapy for students with Apraxia looks a lot different than other language disorders. Speech-Language Pathologists typically go straight for phonemes and articulation. However, Edythe further drives home that Apraxia treatment is focused on movement. So instead of enunciating letter sounds and syllables, the clinician is going to emphasize the movement that creates the sound. This is called Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing, or DTTC, treatment.

Dynamic Assessments are the best evaluations for students with Apraxia and are really different from a lot of the typical assessments in speech pathology. It involves a hierarchy of cueing, and scoring is based on response to that cueing. Versus in Static Assessment, typically there is a picture or a question; the child responds once and the clinician notes the response. Edythe Strand developed her own Dynamic Assessment, DEMS  (Dynamic Evaluation of Motor-speech Skill). She shares some examples of who and how this assessment would be used. The benefits of Dynamic Assessment include knowledge of a child's preferred cueing and an understanding of the severity of the disorder.

Be sure to check out the amazing resources from Dr. Edythe Strand and stay tuned for part two of this really interesting interview!

#autism #speechtherapy

What’s Inside:

• The characteristics of Apraxia.
• What is Dynamic Assessment?
• How to approach therapy with students who have Apraxia?
• What is DTTC treatment? 

Mentioned In This Episode:

Child Apraxia Treatment
Apraxia-kids: Home 

Videos for Parents and Clinicians:

Overview of possible causes and types of problems in speech development
Definitions and Descriptions of Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)
Examples of different levels of severity in Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)
Differentiating Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) from other types of speech sound disorders
Diagnosis of Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)
Treatment of Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)
How parents can help their child with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)
Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS): Other resources
Childhood Apraxia of Speech:  Information for Parents

5-hour general course on CAS
Childhood Apraxia of Speech -- by Dr. Edythe Strand, Ph.d. View video FOR FREE and receive ASHA CEUs! www.utdallas.edu/calliercenter/events/CAS