Discusses developmental apraxia of speech (DAS), a putative diagnostic category for children whose speech errors differ from errors of children with developmental speech delay and resemble errors of adults with acquired apraxia of speech. A study of 148 children with language impairments investigated the diagnosis of DAS. (Author/CR)

Five conditions for sampling the continuous speech of 12 speech-delayed children were defined and compared. Conditions differed on variables associated with examiner behavior and stimulus materials. General findings of few significant differences associated with sampling conditions support the validity of continous speech sampling for phonologic…

Discusses a study that compared speech and prosody-voice profiles of children (ages 4-14) with suspected developmental apraxia of speech (DAS) to profiles of 73 children with speech delay. Also describes a second study of 20 children (ages 3-9) that investigated whether stress was a diagnostic marker of DAS. (Author/CR)

A study used the conversational speech samples from 19 children (ages 4-14) with suspected developmental apraxia of speech (DAS) to investigate the characteristics of the disability. The results of the study, combined with the results of two previous studies, indicate inappropriate stress is a diagnostic marker for DAS. (Author/CR)

Data are presented to support the reliability, validity, and utility of a procedure to assess the severity of a phonological disorder. The severity metric, the percentage of consonants correct (PCC), is readily derived from a continuous speech sample. PCC values index four levels of severity of involvement: mild, mild-moderate, moderate-severe,…

A conceptual framework for management of phonological disorders is proposed. The framework includes a 10-element system for describing the structure of management programs and invokes a diagnostic classification system for determining appropriate management content. Data from three serial studies of management structure describe four modes of…

A diagnostic classification system for phonological disorders is presented which is oriented to the goals of explanation, prediction, and management. Data supporting the validity and utility of the system are also provided, based on a retrospective classification of 43 children with delayed speech. (Author/SEW)

Speech analyses performed on data from 61 speech-delayed children (ages 3-6) found that, in comparison to the validity of conversational speech samples for integrated speech, language, and prosodic analyses, articulation tests appear to yield neither typical nor optimal measures of speech performance. (Author/JDD)