1. Marked difficulties with strength, speech and accuracy of articulatory movement.

2. Imprecise or weakly targeted consonants.

3. Imprecise or weakly targeted vowels, especially those which involve spreading intrinsic tongue muscles, such as /i/, /ai/, /ei/, oi/.

4. Weak vocal quality (lack of respiratory support).

5. Hypo or hypernasality.

6. Weak articulatory contacts.

7. Rapid or slow speaking rate.

8. Speech clarity disintegrates with lengthy utterances.

9. Weak targets, especially for / r, s, l / and vowels.

10. Generally weak, mushy, garbled, imprecise speech.

Many children with apraxia of speech have an accompanying oral-motor weakness (mild dysarthria). Usually, working on the apraxia inadvertently helps to strengthen weak muscles.

Oral-motor stretch, tone and strength activities are indicated. Severe dysarthria can be such a significant obstacle to motor-speech skill development in that the average listener may not be able to decode speech. Children with severe dysarthria will require an augmentative communication system.