The relationship between working memory and apraxia of speech.

The present study aimed to verify the relationship between working memory (WM) and apraxia of speech and explored which WM components were involved in the motor planning of speech. A total of 22 patients and 22 healthy adults were studied. These patients were selected according to the following inclusion criteria: a single brain lesion in the left hemisphere, presence of apraxia of speech and sufficient oral comprehension. This study involved assessment of apraxia of speech and evaluation of working memory capacity. The performance of apraxic patients was significantly poorer than that of controls, where this reached statistical significance. The study concluded that participants with apraxia of speech presented a working memory deficit and that this was probably related to the articulatory process of the phonoarticulatory loop. Furthermore, all apraxic patients presented a compromise in working memory.