The Rotary Club of Sumner Park has teamed up with a parent organisation to tackle the awareness of a serious but little known childhood speech problem.
The Childhood Apraxia Speech Support Australia (CASSA) is a non-profit organisation started by parents of children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech.
Childhood Apraxia of Speech is a neurologically-based impairment, where the brain has difficulty getting messages to the muscles in the mouth.
This hampers a child’s ability to articulate the oral movements necessary to make sounds for speech, which makes forming words and sentences difficult.
The inaugural Childhood Apraxia of Speech awareness walk on August 9 aimed to educate the community on the specifics of the condition, and the confusion between it and other speech and language disorders.
Rotary Club of Sumner Park President Leasa Vanohr said the club only expected around 100 people at the walk in New Farm Park, and were amazed when around 170 attended.
Ms Vanohr said the cause was very important to the club, because there is one member who is a speech pathologist the club, and members whose children have the condition.
“We want to raise awareness [about] how to recognise Childhood Apraxia of speech and help CASSA support those parents who have children with the condition,” she said.
Later this year the club will host forums with local speech pathologists in order to further raise community awareness about this condition.
To contact Childhood Apraxia Speech Support Australia, please visit their website at www.casaustralia.org.