Assessment and Treatment of Childhood Apraxia of Speech: An Inquiry into Knowledge and Experience of Speech-Language Pathologists

Objectives: the present research aims to identify the assessment and treatment processes usedby iranian speech-language pathologists (slps) for childhood apraxia of speech (cas) andinvestigate the impact of their knowledge level and experience on their choice of assessmentand treatment.methods: this research is a cross-sectional study using a survey design conducted on 260 slpswith a minimum of a bachelor’s degree and at least one year of experience of working withpreschoolers. the cas assessment and treatment were measured by a validated questionnaire,which was completed in person or online.results: the tests of diadochokinesis (ddk) (66%), single-word speech sampling (58.1%),oral-motor assessment (54.6%), and connected speech sample analysis (53.1%) were thepopular tests chosen by the participants. the treatment approaches indicated that oral motorexercises (omes) (57.7%) were the only treatment for which over half of the participantsvoted. the experts chose phonologically-based treatments and integrated phonologicalawareness (ipa), but the less-experienced participants were more interested in prompt(prompts for restructuring oral muscular phonetic targets). the majority of the participants(70.8%) believed that children with cas make very slow progress and 21.9% declared thatspeech problems of such children persist through the school years.discussion: the participants’ choice of assessment tasks is in line with the results of recentstudies. however, opting for outdated treatments such as ome indicates a gap between theclinicians’ knowledge and experience in using evidence-based treatments