Aten, James L.

In a test of auditory perception of phonemes, 10 patients with apraxia of speech were compared with 10 matched normal control subjects on a task of pointing to pictures designated by sequences of auditory word stimuli. The test items were 190 sequences of two and three words with minimal variation of initial consonant, final consonant, medial vowel, or multiple phonemes. The apraxic patients made significantly more perceptual errors as a group, but varied considerably in their level of performance. The achievement of some patients was within the range established by the control subjects; that of others was unequivocally inferior. The major deficit in the apraxic group appeared to be impairment of ability to retain the second- and third-syllable consonant elements in three-word sequences. Apraxia of speech can occur in relatively pure form in the absence of auditory perceptual impairment. It can also occur in conjunction with reduced auditory retention span, which impairs the perception of sequences of words which are minimally varied phonemically.