A Diagnostic Marker to Discriminate Childhood Apraxia of Speech From Speech Delay: II. Validity Studies of the Pause Marker

Purpose

The purpose of this 2nd article in this supplement is to report validity support findings for the Pause Marker (PM), a proposed single-sign diagnostic marker of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS).

Method

PM scores and additional perceptual and acoustic measures were obtained from 296 participants in cohorts with idiopathic and neurogenetic CAS, adult-onset apraxia of speech and primary progressive apraxia of speech, and idiopathic speech delay.

Results

Adjusted for questionable specificity disagreements with a pediatric Mayo Clinic diagnostic standard, the estimated sensitivity and specificity, respectively, of the PM were 86.8% and 100% for the CAS cohort, yielding positive and negative likelihood ratios of 56.45 (95% confidence interval [CI]: [1.15, 2763.31]) and 0.13 (95% CI [0.06, 0.30]). Specificity of the PM for 4 cohorts totaling 205 participants with speech delay was 98.5%.

Conclusion

These findings are interpreted as providing support for the PM as a near-conclusive diagnostic marker of CAS.

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