Development Verbal Dyspraxia (DVD)

DVD is essentially an expressive language disorder where it may be difficult to understand what the student is trying to say. In severe cases the student’s speech may be unintelligible. The student with DVD frequently struggles to produce words or sounds, and facial distortions may accompany his/her struggle to produce targeted sounds. The student may have a limited range of consonant and vowel sounds. Speech may be slow and lacking in normal phrasing and intonation, and as a result the student’s speech may sound very flat and what he/she is communicating may not sound very interesting, with the result that the student may not communicate what was intended.

The student with DVD often has difficulty producing on request the speech sounds and phrases he/she is capable of producing in spontaneous speech. Students may have problems with modulating speech volume (too loud/too quiet). Students frequently communicate using short simple sentence structures. Students may be slow to initiate communication and may be reluctant to communicate verbally, particularly in group situations. Some students appear expressionless and in addition may have difficulties interpreting facial and body language. DVD may impact on a student’s willingness to interact with peers, which has an impact on the development of ageappropriate social skills.

Students may present with limited concentration and attention in school. Students may also have problems following directions and instructions, acquiring vocabulary and learning grammar. Difficulties are likely to be experienced with the acquisition of reading skills, particularly in the initial stages of learning, and the learning of spellings may also be affected, with speech distortions impacting on the student’s production of required sound sequences. These difficulties undermine the student’s writing ability. Furthermore, difficulties in organising and sequencing expressive language to express thoughts and ideas will impact on the ability to write longer passages, and this will have significant consequences at post-primary level.