What is Childhood Apraxia of Speech?

While most children almost miraculously learn to speak without effort, children with apraxia struggle mightily to accurately produce and sequence sounds, syllables and words. Their understanding of language is generally much better than their ability to express it.  Weak muscles are not the problem.  The difficulty lies in planning rapid and finely coordinated movements of the speech structures (the lips, tongue, palate and jaw). For children with apraxia, their ideas are often misunderstood, not understood at all, or are left unspoken.  Childhood Apraxia of Speech is challenging to overcome. Intensive speech therapy is the only proven treatment for this rare speech sound disorder.

What is the Walk for Apraxia?

The Walk for Apraxia is our annual family event held in 70+ cities across the country. While it raises critical funds and awareness for the programs at Apraxia Kids, the heart of the Walk is our apraxia community. Walk Day is all about celebrating the lives and hard work of our kids, our Apraxia stars, who work so hard every day to overcome CAS. Every Apraxia Star attending the walk is recognized individually. The Walk for Apraxia is also a reminder to our apraxia families that they are not alone. At the walk, relatives, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and community members surround them, creating connection and a web of support. Finally, the Walk is a crucial tool for raising awareness about apraxia among community members who have never heard of the disorder, which can make the journey less confusing for families diagnosed in the future.

Why do we fundraise?

Individuals and teams fundraise as part of the Walk for Apraxia in order to support Apraxia Kids’s mission and our current and future efforts to help children with apraxia find their voice.

• Childhood apraxia of speech is among the rarest, most severe and complex of all speech disorders impacting children.
• Proper treatment is intensive and specialized speech therapy can be extremely difficult for families to find for their children.
• Specialized understanding and training of speech professionals is needed to optimize outcomes for children.
• Without proper help and services, a cascade of other challenges may occur to children with apraxia, including social, emotional, and learning difficulties related to limited speech and communication.

Apraxia Kids exists to address these issues and more. Without the funds raised from the Walk for Apraxia, we could not provide information, support, and training to families and professionals.

Support for Children and Families — Apraxia Kids exists to serve children affected by childhood apraxia of speech first and foremost. We have cultivated the biggest network of CAS families, speech language professionals, and research experts in North America working to give every child a voice. We support children and their families in a variety of ways.

Freely available through Apraxia Kids, parents are able to connect with other families for support and begin to learn the most effective ways to find their child the help they need to become speakers and communicators to have a voice. Our online support group has over 21,000 members and is often a main site of peer support and information-sharing with expert contributions from the Apraxia Kids professional community. Additionally, funds are made available to help families with limited financial means to defray the costs of speech therapy for their child. Each year Apraxia Kids awards iPads and cases to children through our iPads for Apraxia program in order to support their speech practice and give them an alternative communication option.

Support for Professionals — Apraxia Kids is nationally-recognized for our advanced training and clinical expertise in childhood apraxia of speech. Each year Apraxia Kids provides direct training and education to hundreds of speech professionals. We offer a full range of educational options that provides them with the latest information on understanding, diagnosing, and treating children with apraxia of speech. Apraxia Kids offers online webinars, regional workshops, and the annual national conference in order to provide continuing education.

Apraxia Kids also conducts the Childhood Apraxia of Speech Intensive Training Institute. Every other year, we train a group of exceptional speech therapists who desire to receive the most up-to-date information and therapy practices for treating apraxia. This intensive 5-day training equips Speech Language Pathologists with the tools necessary to improve their recognition and treatment of apraxia and therefore improving the outcomes for children with CAS. All of these educational activities are aimed at improving the speech and communication outcomes for children with apraxia in your community and through the country.

Raising Awareness — While understanding of apraxia has come a long way since our beginning in 2000, it is still a little-known disorder that affects over 100,000 children across the US. Apraxia Kids continually works to bring apraxia into the light so that every new family diagnosed may have an easier journey to find answers and gain the support necessary for successful treatment of apraxia. The more familiar the public becomes with apraxia, the stronger the resources and support for children and families will become.

The Walk for Apraxia is our biggest event for raising awareness about CAS at the grassroots level. Every year, more than 10,000 individuals come together to celebrate the lives of our Apraxia Stars and even more learn about apraxia when they donate to support their friends and families. Our first walk occurred 11 years ago in Pittsburgh; today the Walk for Apraxia spans 75 cities!

Apraxia Kids also funds annual research grants for speech professionals who want to focus their research on apraxia. Because childhood apraxia of speech is considered a somewhat rare speech disorder funding for research is scarce. Our efforts have particularly focused on research into effective treatments for apraxia. Additionally, we periodically convene gatherings of the world’s top researchers in order to share their research questions and findings, further advancing what is known about the nature and treatment of apraxia.

To learn more about apraxia and the work of Apraxia Kids, check out our website at www.apraxia-kids.org!