Speech Therapy Consulting
Speech Therapy Consulting
Childhood Apraxia of Speech is a motor planning disorder where the brain struggles to coordinate speech movements. Watch for these key indicators.
Your child may say a word correctly once but struggle with it moments later. Errors are unpredictable and vary from attempt to attempt.
Only a few consonant and vowel sounds are produced consistently, making speech difficult to understand even for familiar listeners.
Visible searching movements with the jaw, lips, or tongue as your child attempts to produce sounds, showing difficulty coordinating movement.
Speech errors increase dramatically with multi-syllable words or longer utterances, indicating difficulty sequencing movements.
CAS requires intensive, specialized motor-based therapy focused on repetition, frequency, and systematically building speech movement patterns.
"Our son was diagnosed with Autism at the age of 4. The first services we received was speech therapy as he was unable to express himself. We were lucky enough to have been paired with Stacey. Our son has been in speech therapy for almost a year now and has improved so much. He is always excited to go see Mrs. Stacey. We are forever grateful."— Lopez Family, Dixon, CA
"STC helped me ease my daughter into attending sessions independently instead of needing me to accompany her to every session, which has given her more confidence. My daughter looks forward to her therapy every week. We've experienced other speech therapy service providers and STC is by far our favorite. It feels like a second home."— Ann & Rose, Vacaville, CA
CAS is a motor speech disorder where the brain struggles to plan and coordinate the movements needed to produce speech sounds accurately and consistently. It's not a muscle weakness issue, but rather a difficulty with the neurological programming of speech movements.
CAS is diagnosed through comprehensive speech-language evaluation looking for characteristic signs: inconsistent speech errors, difficulty sequencing sounds, groping or searching movements, and prosody (rhythm/stress) problems. Diagnosis requires specialized training and experience.
CAS requires intensive therapy, often 3-5 sessions per week initially. Duration varies by severity but most children need 1-3 years of consistent treatment. Progress depends on frequency of therapy, home practice, and individual factors.
Most insurance plans cover CAS therapy as it's a medically diagnosed speech disorder. We accept Sutter HMO, Kaiser, Cigna, Blue Shield PPO, and Western Health Advantage. Prior authorization may be required for intensive frequency.
Unlike articulation disorders, CAS is a motor planning problem, not a muscle weakness or structural issue. Children with CAS know what they want to say but struggle to coordinate the precise movements to say it. This requires specialized treatment approaches focusing on motor learning principles.
