In this collection of papers on apraxia of speech (AOS), we discuss the advancements in understanding this syndrome including controversial issues about the theoretical foundations of AOS. We also review the literature from three different, but overlapping, perspectives—disconnection, motor memory, and fine motor skill perspective—and conclude that many of the still unresolved conceptual issues about AOS arise from an under-specification of existing spoken-language production models.

Learning Outcomes
You will be able to:

• discuss the reliability and validity of two quantitative approaches to document the presence and severity of speech properties associated with AOS
• discuss AOS as it occurs in neurodegenerative disease and how its careful study may contribute to general concepts of AOS
• describe the use of on-line, reaction-time based methods to study AOS
• describe the empirical evidence in favor of an interaction between phonological and phonetic encoding, and of the predominance of mixed patterns of impairment over pure phonetic impairment
• discuss error variability in AOS
• describe the sensitivity and specificity of AOS and phonological errors as markers
• compare sound production errors arising due to phonological processing impairment versus motor speech impairment

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