Re: info needed about word retrevial

[Guest guest]

Julee

My younger son (who's now 6,5) had these issues - well, he still does

but they're changed. He didn't start really talking more than 3 words

until he was 3+ and we had eliminated gluten from his diet. When he did

begin to talk more, he could not remember the names of objects and would

indicate many of them by calling them by their COLOR....for cooked ham,

he'd ask for " pink " , for peanut butter " brown " ...we'd reinforce the

correct vocab by repeating what he said inserting the actual word for

what he intended to say. This went on for several years - often we'd

still have to ask him if he wanted " pink " because " prosciutto " (ham)

appeared to have no functional meaning for him.

He started first grade and we've also upped his omegas and vit E/K and

his use of actual names has improved, but now he says " Mom come look at

THIS. " I ask him " this, what? " and he cannot tell me, he just repeats

" THIS! " If I don't physically go to the room where he is and play 20

questions to discern, I am still lost. Sometimes, he still describes

the object or situation when he cannot recall the specific word or

phrase to use...his descriptions are more detailed now, but the actual

noun retrieval remains an issue.

At this point, we continue to focus on re-modeling what he meant to say

(we never tell him that what he said was wrong because doing that is

demoralizing to him) and working on visual-auditory-written

vocabulary. Him learning to READ is helping tremendously also because

we can utilize his visual pathways to reinforce his auditory word memory

now.

He is bilingual but this problem is clearly evident for him in both

languages, and is not related to bilingual upbringing. He's a math

and logic and videogame wizard though, despite his language retrieval

issues. He does have dyspraxia issues (more than word retrieval). The

fish oils and anti-oxidants have proven very helpful, as did reducing

his exam-confirmed toxic heavy metal load via a brief stint of chelation.

momresearch

[Guest guest]

My 7 yr has this issue as well. He has apraxia, now mostly resolved,

and also a language issue. His syntax and semantics are the biggest

issue now. He has the word retrieval issues both receptively and

expressively. I'll tell him to put something " by the sink " and he

will wander around aimlessly then come back much later and say, " What

sink? " He knows what a sink is! His former speech therapist felt

that some of his issue were similar to adults she worked with who had

aphasia. We did testing for epileptic aphasia, but if he's having

absence seizures we didn't catch any during the EEGs. It at least

ruled out LKS.

When he finally learned his colors he used to refer to EVERYTHING by

it's color. He still does with several things. One of his early

words was soda so he STILL calls is soga. The earlier he learned a

word the longer it has taken for him to unlearn his initial

mispronunciation. He will request soda by it's color. Red soga =

coke, black soga = diet coke, green soga = 7-up or sprite. Oh, and

until recently it was " soga black " or " soga green " with the adjective

after the noun.

Now that his vocabulary is much larger he can talk around the words he

can't remember which is in a way good for his language development as

it makes his sentences longer and with more complex construction. I'm

noticing the word retrieval issues come up less and less these last

few months. He's really grown in amazing ways the last 12-14 months.

He was still considered severe summer 2007 and now I'd say his speech

issues are mild and his language issues probably moderate. He also is

more aware and " practices " things he has problems remembering. Just

before Christmas every day he asked us to help him practice what all

the rooms are called. He's being given more chores at home and often

he'll bring things to the wrong room so he needed to repeat over and

over what each room was called (family room vs. living room was a

tough one.) It seems where a typical kid needs to hear something,

what, 2000 times before they understand, he needs to hear it 10,000

times before it's really stuck in his head. Both his therapists and I

have felt this was the case since he was 2!

Since he had a lot of different speech and language issues and since

he was pretty functional with talking around the retrieval issue we

hadn't specifically addressed it in therapy. It's now becoming less

of an issue so unless it persists it will probably remain on the back

burner while we work on more pressing things.

MIche

On Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 4:21 PM, juleeff <juleeff@...> wrote:

> Does someone have a website or book that talks about word retrevial

> issues? I'm thinking that this may be an issue with my 4 year old DS.

> He has a great vocabulary (just occurred in the last 6 months), has a

> biligual background (hears 2 languages but currently speaks only

> English) and has made great strides in intelligiblity (from 3% to 65%

> in a year). I have noticed though that he sometimes forgets words

> that should come naturally, words that he has used many times before

> and will have no problem with later.

>

> For instance we were talking about how we have to use a seat belt to

> keep to ouselves safe in the car. A few minutes later when we got in

> the car he said, " mom, I can't reach .... what's that thing that we

> were talking about before? " " A seat belt " I relplied. " yeah, I can't

> reach my seat belt. " He has done the same thing with words like

> food items, school related words.

>

> I don't notice the groping for words as much as when he had less

> vocabulary so I'm not sure if he can't remember how the word should

> be said and he is waiting for a model or if he truly can't remember

> the word. He has great strategies for getting around the owrds he

> doesn't remember, either asking direct (like example above), using a

> similar meaning word and then adding 'but not exactly what I word it

> is' after, using a description, or round about story telling to get

> to the point.

>

> Does anyone have info on this? Has anyone else had a child with a

> similar situation? What did you do?

>

> Thanks in advance,

>

> Julee

>