ABSTRACT
Although apraxia of speech was the first of the dyspraxias to be described explicitly, it is also the one around which most controversy has raged. To attempt a detailed definition would be to cross a swamp that has minefields on the islands. The central feature is a difficulty with the voluntary production of the sounds that go to make up spoken language, despite adequate muscle power and range of movements. In trying to say 'Put the TV on the table', someone suffering from apraxia of speech might say what sounds like 'A 'pud the 'chee 'B nond 'tail'ble' (' indicates a stressed syllable). There will be distortions of a sound on one occasion but not another (tin chee and tailble), anticipation of sounds (non, tailble), and apparent addition (apud), substitution (b for v), and omission of sounds (not instanced here). However, such a straightforward view hides over a century of heated debate, which has spawned a catalogue of definitions and labels that are signposts to the history of neurological and linguistic thinking over that time (see reviews by Darley, Aronson and Brown, 1975; Messerli, 1983).
