Last updated 2026-07-09
TL;DR
Apraxia Kids (formerly the Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America, or CASANA) is the main nonprofit built entirely around childhood apraxia of speech. It funds research, trains speech-language pathologists, and runs a free provider directory plus an annual conference. Everything it offers, from finding a qualified therapist to downloading home practice guides to connecting with other families, costs parents nothing.
What Apraxia Kids actually does
When parents say "the childhood apraxia of speech association," they usually mean Apraxia Kids, legally incorporated as the Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America (CASANA). Sharon Gretz started it in 2000 after her own son was diagnosed with CAS, and it's run as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit ever since. [1]
Its mission stays narrow on purpose: improve life for kids with CAS through research, education, and community. There are plenty of broad speech and language nonprofits out there, but none of them treats CAS as their whole reason for existing.
In practice, that focus shows up in four ways. The group trains clinicians through its Certified Apraxia Kids Specialist (CAKS) program, which credentials SLPs who complete specialized CAS coursework and pass a competency review; as of 2024, more than 1,300 CAKS-certified providers appear in the free online directory. [1] It funds peer-reviewed research into motor speech disorders in children, work that matters because CAS competes poorly against more common conditions for NIH dollars without a dedicated funding stream. It gives away family education, too, with downloadable guides, recorded webinars, and articles written in plain language rather than clinical jargon. And it runs the annual Apraxia Kids National Conference, the largest gathering of CAS families and specialists anywhere.
Why CAS needs its own organization
CAS affects roughly 1 to 2 children per 1,000, rare compared to other speech sound disorders. [9] ASHA describes it as "a motor speech disorder" in which "the child has difficulty planning and programming the sequences of movements needed for speech," with no muscular weakness or paralysis behind it. [2]
That rarity is exactly why a dedicated group matters. Most SLPs see very few CAS cases in a given year, and a 2019 survey of practicing SLPs found gaps in CAS-specific training common across graduate programs, which helps explain why misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis still happen. [3] A child can spend years in general speech therapy that was never built for the motor-planning problem at the core of CAS, making little progress, before a correct diagnosis finally changes course.
Apraxia Kids exists to close that gap: train clinicians properly, get families accurate information faster, and fund the research that improves both. For a closer look at the diagnosis itself, the childhood apraxia of speech overview covers what to expect at an evaluation.
Should you go to the Apraxia Kids National Conference?
The conference runs once a year, usually late June or early July, in a rotating U.S. city, pulling SLPs, researchers, and families together for two to three days of sessions ranging from clinical training for therapists to hands-on workshops for parents.
It's worth going if you fit one of a few situations. If your child was recently diagnosed and you're still trying to understand CAS, the family-track sessions translate clinical research into home strategies you can actually run, no speech pathology degree required. If you're trying to find a specialist you trust, the attendee list includes some of the most serious CAS-focused SLPs in the region, and talking to them in person before booking an evaluation is a real advantage. And if your current therapist wants to build their CAS skills, the continuing education sessions count toward ASHA CEU requirements, which is why many clinicians show up. Registration fees vary by attendee type; the 2024 conference listed early-bird family registration at roughly $150 to $250 per person, with reduced student rates and scholarships for families who can't afford full price (Apraxia Kids posts a scholarship application each spring [1]). Pricing shifts year to year, so check the Apraxia Kids website for current numbers.
There's also a vendor floor where AAC device companies, app developers, and therapy material publishers set up shop. If you've been wondering about AAC devices for your child, seeing several options in one place and asking real questions beats scrolling product pages.
Finding a qualified CAS therapist
The Apraxia Kids provider directory at apraxia-kids.org is the best starting point for finding a local specialist: search by ZIP code and filter for the Certified Apraxia Kids Specialist (CAKS) credential. [1]
CAKS certification requires an SLP to complete specific CAS coursework and pass a competency review, so it's a real signal rather than a participation badge. That said, not having CAKS doesn't mean a therapist can't treat CAS well; plenty of excellent SLPs have trained heavily in motor speech disorders without chasing this particular credential. Treat the directory as a starting point, not a hard filter.
When you call a prospective therapist, three questions tell you most of what you need to know. Ask how many children with CAS they currently treat or have treated in the past year: experience with CAS specifically predicts better outcomes, and a therapist who's handled ten CAS cases confidently beats one who's only read about it. Ask which CAS treatment approaches they use, since evidence-supported methods include Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing (DTTC), the Nuffield Dyspraxia Programme (NDP3), and Rapid Syllable Transition Treatment (ReST) [4]; if someone names only general articulation therapy with no motor-planning method, ask why. And ask what session frequency they'd recommend for your child's severity. CAS usually needs more intensive therapy than other speech sound disorders, often two to four sessions a week at the start, so once a month for a child with moderate to severe CAS is a yellow flag.
For context on the broader therapy process, see our guide to speech therapy and speech therapists.
The treatments Apraxia Kids points families toward
Apraxia Kids doesn't endorse a single treatment brand, but it publishes a treatment overview naming the approaches with the strongest research base.
Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing (DTTC), developed by Edythe Strand at Mayo Clinic, uses slowed simultaneous production with heavy cueing that fades as the child improves; its randomized controlled trial evidence is among the strongest of any CAS treatment. [4] The Nuffield Dyspraxia Programme (NDP3), developed in the UK, builds speech from individual sounds up through longer sequences using pictures and structured drill, with a solid evidence base especially for younger and more severely affected children. Rapid Syllable Transition Treatment (ReST), developed in Australia, targets multisyllabic words and prosody and has been tested in several small RCTs. [4]
Intensity matters regardless of which approach you choose. A 2021 systematic review in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research found more intensive dosing produced better outcomes in CAS, with high-frequency sessions generally beating low-frequency sessions at the same total trial count. [5] Apraxia Kids warns against approaches with no motor-planning component: auditory discrimination training and general phonological awareness programs aren't enough on their own for CAS unless paired with motor practice.
If CAS shows up alongside autism, the treatment picture shifts some. Our piece on autism spectrum speech therapy covers those overlaps.
Where Apraxia Kids fits into diagnosis
Apraxia Kids doesn't diagnose anyone. That job belongs entirely to a licensed speech-language pathologist, ideally one with motor speech experience. What the organization does is help parents understand what a good evaluation looks like and how to ask for one.
ASHA's technical report on CAS names three core diagnostic features: inconsistent errors on consonants and vowels, lengthened and disrupted transitions between sounds and syllables, and inappropriate prosody, especially in how stress falls on words and phrases. [11] A child doesn't need to show all three every time, and severity runs wide, from mildly disordered speech to being largely unintelligible.
CAS gets misread as a phonological disorder, an articulation disorder, or a language delay all the time, and the label matters because the treatment differs: phonological therapy targets rule-based sound patterns, while CAS therapy targets the motor planning system itself. For a full walkthrough of diagnostic criteria and what to bring to an evaluation, the apraxia of speech article goes deeper on the clinical side.
Parents can download the Apraxia Kids "Is It Apraxia?" guide before an appointment to document what they're seeing at home. It doesn't replace a professional evaluation, but it hands the SLP useful observational data that speeds things along.
Does Apraxia Kids have resources for kids who also use AAC?
Yes, and it's not an afterthought for them. Plenty of children with moderate to severe CAS use augmentative and alternative communication while they build verbal speech, and for years families got almost no guidance on how to run both at once.
Apraxia Kids now publishes material specifically on combining AAC with speech therapy for CAS, and it takes a clear position: AAC does not reduce speech output and shouldn't be withheld while a child's verbal speech is still developing. That lines up with ASHA's current guidance on AAC.[6]
Kids with CAS who are largely unintelligible, or who aren't yet combining words, are good candidates for a low-tech or high-tech AAC evaluation, and the Apraxia Kids conference regularly runs sessions on exactly this intersection. If you want a primer on how AAC works and which device types fit different ages and abilities, our AAC devices article covers that ground.
The organization also addresses how CAS overlaps with other diagnoses, autism in particular. Roughly 7 to 12 percent of children with autism are estimated to have co-occurring CAS, though the exact numbers are shaky since autism evaluations rarely screen for it systematically.[2]
What can you use for free at home?
The Apraxia Kids website gives away a surprising amount of real material, not just marketing copy. A few pieces stand out. The Family Start Guide is a downloadable PDF that walks through what CAS is, how diagnosis works, what therapy should look like, and how to handle insurance. It's a solid first read right after a diagnosis. There are also webinar recordings featuring researchers and clinicians who usually only speak at professional conferences, on everything from DTTC practice strategies at home to school-based services under IDEA. The reading list pulls together peer-reviewed articles and books on CAS in plain language, and the parent community forum lets families swap experiences, ask questions, and name specific local providers, which is genuinely useful in areas the CAKS directory doesn't reach. For practice between sessions, structured repetition tools help fill the gap. Apps built around short, frequent, low-effort motor practice are one way parents supplement clinic work. Little Words, for instance, was built to give neurodivergent children bite-sized speech and language practice without pressure, and it includes a free assessment at littlewords.ai to match activities to where a child actually is. That said, no app replaces an SLP trained specifically in CAS.
Some families also qualify for early intervention before age three, which is federally mandated under IDEA Part C and free. Apraxia Kids keeps a page just on navigating early intervention for CAS.[8]
Will insurance cover it, and can Apraxia Kids help?
Coverage swings hard depending on your state, insurer, and plan type. No federal law guarantees insurance coverage for CAS speech therapy specifically, though the Affordable Care Act requires most plans to cover habilitative services, and state parity laws often widen that further.
Apraxia Kids publishes a guide to navigating insurance that covers writing a letter of medical necessity with your SLP, appealing a denial using the diagnostic literature (citing ASHA's CAS technical report carries real weight[11]), and state-specific resources on which states have the strongest habilitative service mandates.
Even so, many families end up with partial coverage, high copays, or visit caps. Typical out-of-pocket cost for intensive CAS therapy, two to four sessions a week, runs from $200 to $600 or more a month depending on region and whether you're at a private practice or a university clinic. There's no reliable national survey on this, but university clinics generally run 40 to 60 percent cheaper than private practice.
School-based services under IDEA are a separate route entirely. If a child's CAS affects their access to the curriculum, the district has to provide services at no cost. Apraxia Kids has detailed IDEA guides and will connect families with parent advocates in their state.[8]
How does Apraxia Kids compare to ASHA and similar organizations?
They're not competing with each other; they just work at different levels. ASHA (the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) is the professional credentialing and standards body for SLPs in the U.S. It sets clinical practice guidelines, certifies clinicians, and publishes the field's major journals, and its technical report and practice portal on CAS are the clinical gold standard.[2] But it isn't set up for family support: no parent hotline, no therapist directory filtered by CAS specialty.
Apraxia Kids fills that gap between the clinical establishment and the family kitchen table. It translates ASHA guidance into everyday language, pushes for CAS research funding, and connects families to providers directly.
The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) at NIH is the federal research funder. It has funded CAS research and publishes a CAS fact sheet[9], but again, no family support services. UK families are better served by AFASIC and the Nuffield Hearing and Speech Centre; the NDP3 program actually came out of that UK context.
| Organization | Type | Primary audience | CAS-specific focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apraxia Kids (CASANA) | Nonprofit advocacy | Families + SLPs | Yes, CAS only |
| ASHA | Professional association | SLPs | Broad, CAS included |
| NIDCD (NIH) | Federal research agency | Researchers | Broad |
| AFASIC (UK) | Nonprofit advocacy | UK families | Broad speech/language |
What should you do first after a CAS diagnosis?
A new CAS diagnosis lands hard. Most parents feel some relief at finally having a name for what they've been watching, mixed with dread about what comes next. There's no perfect sequence here, but a practical one looks something like this.
If you're not confident in the diagnosing SLP's CAS experience, get a second opinion. CAS gets misdiagnosed in both directions, and a second evaluation from a CAKS-certified provider or a university motor speech clinic is worth the wait. Search the Apraxia Kids provider directory right away and filter for CAKS providers nearby; if none exist locally, ask about telehealth, since remote CAS therapy from an experienced SLP has research support and is a legitimate option (our online speech therapy overview covers what to look for in a remote provider).
Download the Family Start Guide from apraxia-kids.org before your next appointment so you walk in with informed questions. If your child is under three, request an early intervention evaluation; if they're school-aged, request an IEP evaluation from your district. Both are free and legally protected.[8] It's also worth joining the Apraxia Kids parent community: the practical knowledge there, especially which local providers other families trust, isn't available anywhere else. And for families dealing with CAS alongside other speech and language issues, echolalia and echolalia meaning come up often when autism and CAS overlap.
At Little Words, we've seen families do best when they pair strong clinical therapy with low-stakes daily practice at home. The quiz at littlewords.ai/start takes about three minutes and gives you a personalized snapshot of where your child's speech and language skills sit right now.
Yes, Apraxia Kids (legally CASANA) is a legitimate nonprofit. It's been a registered 501(c)(3) since 2000, its financials are public through annual reports and Charity Navigator, and it was founded by a parent of a child with CAS, which keeps it family-centered in how it's run. To find a CAS-certified therapist nearby, use the free provider directory at apraxia-kids.org and filter by the Certified Apraxia Kids Specialist (CAKS) credential, searching by ZIP code. If nothing turns up locally, telehealth from an experienced SLP is a well-supported alternative, and university speech clinics are worth a look too since they often cost less and offer strong motor speech training. CAKS itself is a credential Apraxia Kids gives to SLPs who complete specialized CAS training and pass a competency review; more than 1,300 providers held it as of 2024. It's a real signal of CAS-specific knowledge, though plenty of excellent CAS therapists never picked up this particular credential because they trained through other routes. If you're hoping to attend the Apraxia Kids National Conference, it usually lands in late June or early July, with the host city rotating around the U.S. each year. Registration opens several months out, and scholarships for families who can't manage full price are typically available starting in spring. Check apraxia-kids.org for the current year's details. On the AAC question: yes, a child with CAS can use it while still learning to talk, and Apraxia Kids supports this without hesitation. Research and ASHA guidance both show that AAC doesn't reduce verbal speech development, so it shouldn't be withheld. Kids with CAS who are largely unintelligible often do better with AAC as a bridge while motor speech therapy continues alongside it. As for treatment, the approaches with the strongest evidence are Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing (DTTC), the Nuffield Dyspraxia Programme (NDP3), and Rapid Syllable Transition Treatment (ReST). All three target motor planning rather than sound rules, and intensity matters here: two to four sessions a week is typical for moderate to severe cases. General articulation therapy on its own won't cut it. Insurance coverage for CAS varies by state, plan, and insurer. The ACA requires most plans to include habilitative services, which covers speech therapy in many cases, though visit caps and high copays are common. Apraxia Kids publishes an insurance navigation guide and letter-of-medical-necessity templates to help with this. School-based services under IDEA are free if CAS affects a child's access to education. People often confuse CAS with a general speech delay, but they're different things. A delay means a child is acquiring speech later than typical while still following the normal developmental sequence. CAS is a specific motor speech disorder: the child struggles to plan and sequence the movements speech requires, regardless of how much language they understand. That means CAS needs motor-focused therapy, not just more time or general language stimulation. Autism and CAS can occur together. Estimates suggest roughly 7 to 12 percent of children with autism also have CAS, though since systematic screening is rare, the true number could differ. When both are present, therapy planning has to address motor speech and social communication together, so it helps a lot to find an SLP experienced in both. For school-age kids, Apraxia Kids publishes detailed guides on navigating IDEA, including how to request an IEP evaluation, what to ask for once you're in the room, and how to connect with parent advocates. If CAS is affecting a child's ability to access the curriculum, the district has to provide services at no cost. Looking for other families going through this? Apraxia Kids runs a network of volunteer-led local affiliate groups across the U.S., plus an online parent community forum. How active the local groups are depends a lot on your region, but the online forum stays busy and is a genuinely good place to find well-regarded local SLPs based on what other parents have actually experienced. Diagnosis can sometimes happen early. CAS can be suspected as young as 18 to 24 months if a toddler has very limited word attempts, inconsistent sound production, or a smaller consonant inventory than peers. A firm diagnosis is usually easier to make between two and three years old, once there's more speech to observe, but early intervention can start before that based on motor speech concerns alone. If you have an evaluation coming up, bring a written list of the words and sounds your child currently uses, some video of them talking at home (home speech often looks different than what shows up in a clinic), any past evaluation reports, and a note on family history of speech or language disorders. The Apraxia Kids "Is It Apraxia?" guide has an observation checklist you can fill out ahead of time.Sources
- Apraxia Kids (CASANA), Organization overview and CAKS directory: Apraxia Kids founded 2000; CAKS credential; over 1,300 certified providers; annual conference; scholarship applications
- ASHA, Childhood Apraxia of Speech practice portal: CAS defined as motor speech disorder affecting planning and programming of movement sequences; AAC guidance; autism co-occurrence
- Iuzzini-Seigel J et al. (2019), Survey of SLP training in CAS, Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools: Gaps in CAS-specific graduate training are common among practicing SLPs
- Murray E, McCabe P, Ballard K (2015), RCT comparing DTTC, NDP3, and ReST, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research: DTTC, NDP3, and ReST are evidence-supported CAS treatments; RCT evidence reviewed
- Gildersleeve-Neumann C et al. (2021), Systematic review of dosing in CAS, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research: More intensive dosing (higher session frequency) produced better outcomes in CAS than low-frequency equivalent-trial approaches
- ASHA, Augmentative and Alternative Communication practice portal: AAC does not inhibit speech development and should not be withheld while verbal speech is being developed
- U.S. Department of Education, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): IDEA requires school districts to provide free speech therapy services when a disability affects educational access; Part C covers early intervention birth to age 3
- NIDCD (NIH), Childhood Apraxia of Speech fact sheet: Federal overview of CAS prevalence (roughly 1 to 2 per 1,000), causes, and research; NIDCD funds CAS research
- American Academy of Pediatrics, Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics: AAP guidance on developmental surveillance and referral for speech and language concerns in early childhood
- ASHA, CAS Technical Report (2007): ASHA technical report establishing CAS as a distinct motor speech disorder with three core diagnostic features used in insurance appeals
This article is for general information and shouldn't replace an evaluation or advice from your child's speech-language pathologist or pediatrician.