Newly Diagnosed

[Guest guest]

Hi

My 2 1/2 yr old daughter was just diagnosed last week with Apraxia. The

diagnosis is so new I haven't even spoken with her speech therapist yet (I was

given the news by our service coordinator). OK, I'm definitely in denial, but I

also REALLY don't think she has it.

She was adopted from China at 11 months at which time she could say Mamma and

Dadda. When we got her home she needed tubes in her ears (13 months), her ENT

said she must have had chronic ear infections her whole life because her ear

drums were so think. Her hearing was very poor initially, we could scream at

her from behind and she wouldn't even flinch. After the tubes her hearing was

good. We haven't had a re-test since 9/07.

She didn't talk at all for quite a while, which is not unusual for children

adopted from a country where they speak a different language. She also didn't

walk till 16 months, and had very little gross motor development, but could hold

a pencil and " write " very small scribbles. It was obvious she had spent most of

her time in a walker with pen and paper.

The director of her school thinks her language has been slow in part because of

the hearing issue, in part because of the language change and in part because

she was catching up on gross motor skills. She is completely caught up on gross

motor now and " leads " her preschool class! She had improved in every way by a

huge amount in the last year.

She does drop the ending sound of words and does use the wrong consonant often,

but is getting more understandable.

She speaks in sentences and must have a vocabulary of over 150 words.

She does understand more than she can intelligibly say.

She would " store " her food in her mouth and we have to get her to spit it out.

This is happening pretty infrequently now.

She doesn't struggle for words.

She knows exactly what she is saying, and says thing very emphatically.

The speech therapist says she drools, which she does not.

She can move her tongue and lips around as directed.

I don't want to be in denial and not have her get the services she needs, but I

also don't want her to be labeled with something that she doesn't have. On the

other hand if she is labeled and gets extra services - that could only help.

What are the next steps for me to take? We live in the Raleigh, NC area, if

anyone has any good resources here I would also appreciate it.

Thanks,

Kate