Florida Atlantic University studies timing of speech therapy for CAS

Florida Atlantic University researchers are investigating whether the time of day impacts the effectiveness of speech therapy for individuals with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). The study focuses on how time of day and memory influence speech-motor learning in adolescents and young adults.

CAS is a motor speech disorder characterized by inconsistent errors in consonants and vowels, disrupted transitions between sounds, and inappropriate prosody. Unlike many childhood speech disorders that improve with age, CAS can persist into adolescence and young adulthood. Research indicates that approximately 78% of adolescents with CAS continue to make speech errors in conversation, and 65% face reading difficulties.

To study learning and retention, researchers recruited 82 participants aged 12 to 21. The study involved training participants to recognize and produce unfamiliar Danish vowel sounds, with groups divided into morning and evening training sessions to measure accuracy and retention.