Needing some help!!!

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone. I am new to this whole world of SID and Apraxia as my

daughter was just diagnosed a week ago. I am still confussed as to

what it is. Our wonderful speech therapist was the one who diagnosed

her with SID(Sensory Intagrative Disorder-- hope I said that right)

with possible apraxia. Now I am finally getting some REAL attention.

Let me start from the begining-- our daughter was born at 29 weeks

gestation. She was without oxygen for a very long time and needed 8

minutes of CPR to bring her " back " and 6 blood transfusions. Just

when we thought she was out of the water we found a bilateral grade

three brain bleed. It subsided after some meds and a few days of

Critical NICU care. Docs thought she would have severe CP and motor

related problems. She pretty much crawled, sat up and walked (in

that order, too) at around the appropriate age. But the speech has

been a huge issue. Because she was such an amazement to all the

docs, they overlook where she is with speech and tell me that she

will eventually catch up. Well, she is 27 months and only has 10

words (if you can call them words) and puts two words together very

rarely. She will not finish the last letter of the word (example:

help is " hel " , even though she can say the " P " sound). Anyway,

frustration levels are high in our family. I have a Down Syndrome

son, 5 years old, and he has a severe/moderate hearing loss which has

caused a severe speech delay in him. Now I have two kido's who

should and want to talk but can't. We are using sign language--

somewhat helpful. The doctors are using the excuse of my son's Down

syndrome as the reason my daughter is speech delayed. They say she

is " picking up his bad habbits " . Well, anyway, I heard about

from a friend and wanted to know if any of this

is familiar to you. If so, do you have any suggestions on how to

help my daughter communicate better? I have been through the whole

early intervention with both my kido's, and have applied everything I

have learned with my Down syndrome child to my daughter but I am

getting nowhere. Even though we are getting speech therapy and soon

OT, I want to do more for her at home. She is very frusterated. She

is showing signs of aggression by playing with her poop,

having " night terrors " and being very whinny. I know she is very

troubled by the lack of communication. Her reseptive is at a 24

month level, her expressive is at an eighteen month level. Mentally

she knows what is going on, so my heart pours out to her-- my Down

syndrome child can not understand that he is behind so he is not as

frusterated, but she can. I don't know what to do. Help!

Mom of na-8, -5 and -2