Fluency and articulatory groping in the differential diagnosis of AOS: A case study

By H.M. Clark and P.A. Henson

Two of the characteristics that are used to differentiate speech sound errors associated with apraxia of speech (AOS) from phonemic paraphasias are the presence of articulatory groping and nonfluent, dysprosodic connected speech. We present the clinical evolution of a patient who presented with fluent connected speech as well as visible articulatory groping during attempts to produce phonemes and syllables. Discussion will center around the diagnostic implications of these speech characteristics and the underlying characterization of AOS and phonemic paraphasic speech.