Apraxia of speech

The apraxia of speech (English verbal apraxia ) is a disorder of the initiation and execution of the necessary for speech movements. Most of the apraxia occurs together with aphasia, particularly Broca's aphasia on. The apraxia of speech may occur together with all other forms of aphasia, rarely occurs in isolation.

Causes

The causes of apraxia of speech are as varied as those of the aphasias. Common to all is a more or less irreversible destruction of brain tissue. Very often occurs as a result of the apraxia of speech on left hemispheric ischemic stroke or cerebral hemorrhage. However, brain tumors, traumatic brain injury or neurosurgical procedures can be a cause.

Symptoms

The symptoms of apraxia include an initiation problem, phonetic distortions and intonational problems and searching movements.

Overall, it is thus rather a purely " output error". The functions of reading, writing and language comprehension are fully intact with a pure apraxia. Also there is no problem of muscle strength. Often at the same time there is a dysarthria.

Diagnostics

For speech therapy or clinical diagnosis there are linguistic criteria that indicate the presence of apraxia of speech.