Developmental Verbal Dyspraxia - A Review
By Pam Williams Dip. CST; M Sc; Reg. MRCSLT.
Abstract
Developmental verbal Dyspraxia continues to be one of the most controversial conditions in Speech and Language Pathology. In the published literature, there remains little agreement on terminology, symptomatology, diagnostic features and indeed its very existence. There is still no empirically identified group with developmental verbal Dyspraxia, and yet clinicians continue to believe that there is a subgroup of children with speech disorders for whom this label is appropriate. This paper aims to update previous literature reviews on the subject (Guyette and Diedrich 1981; Stackhouse 1992) by reviewing current knowledge from three perspectives: theoretical issues, assessment and treatment. It is concluded little progress appears to have been made as far as developmental verbal Dyspraxia is concerned, but advances within the wider domain of speech disorders e.g.. Psycholinguistic approaches to assessment and treatment (Stackhouse and Wells 1997) and sub grouping of speech disorders of unknown aetiology (Dodd 1995; Bradford and Dodd 1996) may well hold the key to future progress in the specific area of developmental verbal Dyspraxia.
Correspondence address:
Nuffield Hearing and Speech Centre,
Royal National Throat,
Nose and Ear (Ears, Nose and Throat-OMIT) Hospital,
Grays Inn Road, London (S-OMIT) WC1X 8DA.