I’ve recently been refreshing my knowledge of childhood apraxia of speech. It is amazing how so much free information is available on apraxia-kids.org and childapraxiatreatment.org. I also love how you can watch an entire DTTC training by Edith Stand on youtube and have free access to the ReST protocol and treatment manual here. Useful CAS cueing systems can also be found here and here. However, there is one thing I have had huge trouble finding, and that is sample goals for child apraxia.
Admittedly, every child with CAS is different and needs goals fit to their needs. Nonetheless, I think it helps to at least see how to format the goal and the potential areas to focus on. Based on my webinars, SLP group searches, and general clinical expertise I wrote up some sample goals below. Feel free to simplify them, especially for the school setting.
1. During structured speech tasks, X will improve movement gestures for speech by directly imitating 10 functional cv, vc, and cvc words that solely include consonant sounds already within her phonemic inventory, with no more than 2 cues provided per target with 80% cumulative accuracy (accuracy including: correct vowels, correct consonants, correct sound sequence, normal prosody and stress without any pauses mid-word) per target word.
2. During structured speech tasks, X will improve motor planning for speech by independently using 2-3 word functional phrases (each word in targeted phrases using cv, vc, cvc, or cvcv syllable structures) that include consonants and vowels already within his phonemic inventory in response to relevant questions from his conversational partner with 80% cumulative accuracy per target phrase.
As you can see, the above goals focus on expanding syllable shapes, complexity, prosody, rhythm, and accuracy of consonants and vowels in the targets.
Below is a new way I came across of writing CAS goals that another SLP modeled for me; these goals focus on the transition between articulatory positions, since CAS is in fact an issue with motor planning of the articulators. I really liked this format and wanted to post some examples of this as well:
1. During structured speech tasks, X will improve motor planning by producing bilabial to bilabial movements (ex. mop, web, pop) in CVC words within 2-3 word phrases given multi-sensory cues fading to independence with 80% cumulative accuracy per target phrase.
2. During structured speech tasks, X will improve motor planning by producing bilabial to alveolar movements (ex. mat, wed, bead) in CVC words within 2-3 word phrases given multi-sensory cues fading to independence with 80% cumulative accuracy per target phrase.
Hope these examples help you come up with some appropriate goals for your own students with apraxia! Until next time.