Volume 6 - Issue 18 (2026-09-20)

Characteristics of Childhood Apraxia of Speech Among Jordanian Arabic Speaking Children

1-Dr: Jawdat Sarsak

2- Researcher: Alaa Mansour

1-Amman center for Speech - language and Swallowing

2-The Princess Sarvanth Community College-Amman-Jordan

Background: Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a motor-based deficit primarily in the structural representation of verbal output that is estimated to occur in 1 to 2 children per 1,000.

Difficulties in diagnosing CAS emerged from the common features that it shares with other speech sound disorders. Purpose: To investigate the diagnostic features of speech errors of childhood apraxia among Jordanian Arabic-speaking children to highlight the nature of speech disorder and its relation to general phonological disorders. Methods: Twelve children with apraxia (4 -11 years old) were recruited. A list of 25 Arabic words that differ in length was created to test the participants’ speech skills. Testing, recording, transcribing was conducted over three weeks by well-trained speech pathologists. Results: All the words were positive for inconsistency among all participants, a positive very strong correlation (r=.848, p<0.0001) was revealed between the length of stimuli and the word inconsistency, the word production accuracy of the participants was poor and below the average. Idiosyncratic processes were the most observed errors. Demonstrate inconsistent phonological errors, inconsistent word production, and poor accuracy of production highly correspondent with stimuli length. That contributes to guide clinicians when assessing any speech disorders. Future research is recommended to get a privileged insight into this phenomenon based on the analysis of diakinetic and motor characteristics besides the correct consonants and vowel productions.