Factor analysis of signs of childhood apraxia of speech.
Karen V Chenausky, Amanda Brignell, Angela Morgan and 6 others
PMID 32877838WHAT IT FOUND
Speech signs in 57 children with childhood apraxia clustered into three distinct groups: prosody, coarticulation, and inconsistency.
This supports using these three areas as core diagnostic criteria. Syllable segmentation was the strongest prosody sign, suggesting it may help identify apraxia even in minimally verbal children.
Key findings
01A three-factor model best explained the data, grouping signs into prosody, coarticulation, and inconsistency.
02Syllable segmentation had the highest loading on the prosody factor, indicating it is a key observable sign.
03The results support requiring signs from all three ASHA consensus domains for a diagnosis of childhood apraxia of speech.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was small (57 children), which limits the certainty of the factor structure. The study used different speech tasks for verbal and minimally verbal children, which could have influenced which signs appeared most often. The children were selected because they already showed signs of CAS, so the study confirms how those signs group together but does not prove they distinguish CAS from other speech disorders. The sample included children with comorbidities like autism and language disorder, which adds variability, though this reflects clinical reality.
Declared interests
The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and non-U.S. government sources. No commercial conflicts of interest were declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret these factors as proof that these signs uniquely diagnose childhood apraxia of speech. The study only analyzed children who already had the disorder, so it shows how signs cluster in this group, not how they differ from children with other speech disorders.