Childhood apraxia of speech is a motor speech disorder in which the brain has difficulty planning and coordinating the precise movements needed to produce speech sounds. Children with apraxia know what they want to say — the challenge is getting their mouth, tongue, and lips to cooperate. CAS is a neurological condition, not a result of muscle weakness or lack of effort.

A speech delay typically means a child is developing speech skills in a normal pattern, just more slowly than expected. Apraxia is different — children with CAS often show inconsistent errors (saying the same word differently each time), struggle to imitate sounds, and have trouble with the motor planning of speech itself. A speech-language pathologist can determine through evaluation whether a child's challenges are consistent with apraxia, a delay, or something else entirely.