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We aimed to test whether real-time magnetic resonance imaging (rtMRI) could be profitably employed to shed light on apraxic speech, particularly by revealing covert articulations. Our pilot data show that covert (silent) gestural intrusion errors (employing an intrinsically simple 1:1 mode of coupling) are made more frequently by the apraxic subject than by normal subjects. Further, we find that covert intrusion errors are pervasive in non-repetitious speech. We demonstrate that what is usually an acoustically silent period before the initiation of apraxic speech oftentimes contains completely covert gestures that occur frequently with multigestural segments. Further, we find that covert gestures corresponding to entire words are produced. Using rtMRI to investigate covert articulatory gestures, we are able to gather information about apraxic speech that traditional methods of transcription based on acoustic data are not at all able to capture.