Apraxia of speech is a communication disorder in which the person is unable to make the muscle movements needed to produce phonemes and phoneme sequences. The purpose of this paper was to carry out a bibliographical survey on acquired and developmental apraxia of speech, searching for their similarities and differences regarding overall characteristics, assessment methods and speech-language pathology intervention. The results showed a large number of papers on the general features of apraxia and on the current genetic research aimed at pinpointing the root cause of the problem, notably studies about FOXP2, translocation, and neurodevelopment. The studies found also examined the variability of speech symptoms, both in children and adults, and the use of protocols developed for clinical and acoustical analyses in reaching a differential diagnosis. The information collected has shown that children with developmental apraxia of speech and adults with acquired apraxia of speech have similar praxis deficits, although the two disorders display unique features across the board, from etiology to prognosis. Therefore, greater investment in furthering national research into diagnosis and rehabilitation is needed, taking into account parameters that can aid in differential diagnosis and therapeutic procedures for dealing with apraxic motor speech disorders.
Apraxias; Speech-language therapy; Speech disorders; Language disorders; Diagnosis; differential
