Re: Darla - Kaufman speech praxis

May 15, 2012

I have Kaufman kit box 2, we have aparaxia with and occasionally use the word shells, pretty expensive at Â£200! Talktools is making a huge difference in 's apraxia but autism gets in the way in that he can now say many words and sounds clearly from the oral placement and TT but has no desire to do so outside of direct therapy.

Just chiming in here, Darla may have different thoughts.

Vicky

Darla - Kaufman speech praxis

Hi Darla, could you please give some info on Kaufman's. Was it under

someone's guidance - did you have an assessment or just went out and

bought the kit? How intensive are the exercises? We have a mild apraxia

here, if that is what it is - I am *convinced* that those baby

consonants and loud volume stem from auditory processing issues (can it

still be apraxia and respond to Kaufman's?). Any info appreciated.

btw I really like reading these long exchanges

Natasa

>

> > **

> >

> > yes, this is book is brilliant:

> >

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intensive-Interaction-Handbook-Dave-Hewett/dp/08\

57024914

> > except for the usual caveats - not really written with parents in

mind

> > and also written with more severe learners in mind. If you are

flexible

> > it's pretty easy to adapt to hf kids. Very very happy to answer

> > questions and be sent footage - it's all good training for me.

> > I can send clips of Tom too if you like. He's not HF and not like

> > (not conversational yet really) but at least he's verbal so it might

> > give you more idea than the stuff you've seen which I'm guessing is

all

> > of non-verbal people.

> > Sara x

> > p.s. you have not lost your natural maternal instinct judging by

what

> > you say. I am very curious to know why was able to internalise

play

> > - find internal motivation through VB. My guess WAS that it was

> > something to do with his original condition/ impairments but now I'm

> > wondering how much it has to do with you holding onto your natural

> > instincts and playing with him like this. I really did lose my

instincts

> > through VB - or rather I learnt to shut them off.

> > THE BIG MESSAGE to all parents out there is, whatever therapy you

choose

> > to do with your child, hold on to your maternal instincts. They have

> > taken literally millions of years for nature to develop and perfect,

I

> > managed to undo all that in a couple of years :-(

> > If you love ABA, VB etc and see it's working for your child,

consider

> > not doing it yourself so that your child also gets this natural

input.

> > Either trust your natural instincts or follow a 'relationship' or

'play'

> > type programme in addition to the behavoiural stuff. That's my

advice

> > anyway, fwiw.

> > xxx

> >

>

May 15, 2012

Hi Natasa,It's been years now since he went through her program but I'll tell you what I remember. was assessed as having severe verbal apraxia (or dyspraxia) - he had no vocal control and could not produce sounds at will, he was not echoic and did not babble. The 2 SLT's that we saw suggested that we start with PECS. His ABA/VB consultant recommended using signs paired with the vocal.

After about 6 weeks of intensive sign language paired with vocals began producing some vocalisations - any sounds at all, the tutors began " shaping " these sounds. Unfortunately it was a tedious and technical process.

We were fortunate that our ABA/VB consultant, supervisor and lead tutor were all trained in the Kaufman method so they were able to progress his speech using successive vocal approximations, word shells and other techniques from her program, this seemed to require some skill but I reckon that a parent who bought the kit could understand and apply it. They didn't use any of her " kits " because they had led enough children through this method that they did it without that support.

was given lots of vocal play with the tutors making lots of sounds during heavy physical play that he was unable to make. This was just to expose him to the blends that he was unable to articulate.

They also took surveys on his phenome blends and built approximation after approximation of each word. It's like a verbal evolution based on progressive blending. I hate to say it but it was technically beyond me and it was something that I never learned - all that Consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel, etc. As far as intensity, I would think that if someone could undertake a phenome assessment and develop a set of successive approximations and that those approximations could be prompted when the word was naturally used. It would really depend on the child and what the problems were and whether or not they were motivated to work on it!

said his words backwards, dropped endings off and his speech was entirely unintelligible to anyone but those familiar with him until he was nearing 6 years old when we dropped of the Kaufmann stuff. After that he spoke with little to no inflection i.e. like a robot, so we worked on " prosody " or his inflection. His inflection is still not as developed as other kids his age but it is vastly improved. He still will drop his R's when talking when he is tired - such as calling his friend Fweddie instead of Freddie and he sometimes stutters but I don't think it's anything pathological.

We've tried with little success to teach volume control (or whatever it is called!) - he still gets pretty loud when he is excited, sometimes inappropriately so, like last night we were eating out and he was laughing and talking quite loudly because he was excited. I figure this is something that he will work out for himself eventually though so I'm not overly concerned about it although it does cause a ruckus sometimes in public but frankly those people who are offended can stuff it for all I care, I'm just bloody grateful that he talks. We do have a " thermometer " to help him have a visual support of his loudness and show him what level to modulate his loudness but he doesn't like it, he finds it embarrassing so we just tell him to talk quieter and frankly most of the time he doesn't, lol. I could see your point though that this may be an auditory processing issue rather than a speech issue.

I don't think that Kaufman is the only way of tackling this problem, I think there are other equally as effective methods, this was just the one that was available to us at the time.

Here is a clip (the only clip that we have online) of a few months ago discussing a chess match between 2 online players " A Gust of Wind " and " Pink Hamster " . The audio isn't great but it still amazes me that he can say things like " The Traxler Attack " when only a few years ago he couldn't say " dog " (he said " god " ) A lay person probably wouldn't see anything amiss in this clip but I can see some mild apraxia - some mumbling when he is thinking, some pauses, a few stutters, his inflection drops off as he develops the game and his speech slows and his facial expressions do not convey how very excited he is when making this video. But then sometimes I think I am wont to pathologise the normal since I have no idea what normal actually is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1MqkQdo4hI & feature=youtu.be HTH.All the best,

Darla