Evals tomorrow - HAVE QUESTIONS!

[Guest guest]

I've been posting for a little over a week now. My son is 21 months old and only

says a handful (maybe 15) words. In these last couple of weeks, I've been

working with him and he can now (on demand) blow, pucker, and has been

exclusively drinking through a straw. He's never had a problem eating, can feed

himself well with a fork (self-spoon feeding is still messy), dances, runs,

gives hugs and kisses, snaps his fingers and " sings " . What I mean by singing is

that I will sing a song such as " This Old Man " , and he will go " duh duh duh " ,

but carry the sing-song intonation (make sense)? I've also started him on 1

ProEFA capsule a day as well as a multi-vitamin (flinstones)

I've expressed my concerns with his speech to his pedi, who has referred us for

a hearing test (which was perfect) and also to our local CDSA office and he will

be going to his initial evaluation in the morning. Here are some of my questions

I'm hoping will be answered by someone who's " been there " so I'll know what I'm

looking at.

1) They're talking about besides a speech/communication eval, also doing a

gross/fine motor skills eval... I do not feel that this is an issue. They are

concerned with possible apraxia and that this eval may help with diagnosis. Are

apraxic children generally delayed in their gross/fine motor skills? How would I

know (besides the eval) if he may be delayed there?

2) Given the information above as to what he can do on demand such as pucker and

blow for kisses or a pinwheel or making the " ooo " sound, does this sound apraxic

or just delayed?

3) Given his age (21m) is it possible that it could only be a delay rather than

apraxic?

4) Like I said I've been giving him a ProEFA daily for a week now (maybe that's

helped with the blowing and puckering and a new word or two), but if he isn't

apraxic, he could still benefit from this, right?

Sorry for all the questions, I just feel so uneducated about this and want to be

armed with info when I go in there tomorrow with him.

[Guest guest]

They usually like to test in at least one other area like PT or OT along with

the speech. Once you are in the school district, they do a psychological along

with whatever area is being tested. Whatever testing they do will tell if he's

on age level in those other areas and will help with a diagnosis.

>

>>

> 1) They're talking about besides a speech/communication eval, also doing a

gross/fine motor skills eval... I do not feel that this is an issue. They are

concerned with possible apraxia and that this eval may help with diagnosis. Are

apraxic children generally delayed in their gross/fine motor skills? How would I

know (besides the eval) if he may be delayed there?

>

>

[Guest guest]

Hi there

I'm assuming that CDSA is your County Early Intervention program? Generally

speaking, a thorough intake will look at several areas, including fine/gross

motor skills. Even if you know he's fine, they will probably do it just to make

sure. I've not been around here that long, so hopefully others with more

experience will answer, but re: your Q's on Apraxia and other issues.. Many with

Apraxia have what are called : " soft signs " - tone issues or sensory integration

issues. I'm not clear as to what the % of kids would be tho.

That's fantastic that he's made much progress, with the pucker, straw and

blowing. Could he not do those things before?

Not going to try and define the difference between oral and verbal apraxia as I

probably wouldnt do a great job, but if a child has difficulty blowing

raspberries, puckering for a kiss, drinking thru a straw, blowing bubbles, the

practitioner would prob eval the child for possible oral apraxia. If the child

can do those things but has a limited range of sounds (and much more goes into

this.. all of which I'm still trying to figure out), the practitioner might look

at possible verbal apraxia. At such a young age, the practitioner would most

likely use a " suspected apraxia " dx which is what we're operating with altho I'm

beginning of late to wonder more about a phonological processing disorder with

my little guy. I was fine with that dx as it made it a bit easier to up his ST

time which has helped a lot (even tho he really dislikes going).

Could he just be delayed? Sure.. but from all I've read and this is just my

personal belief tho, better to do the speech if you can, because *if* it's

apraxia it's not something that gets better all by itself. And if he's delayed

(hopefully so), then you can have a huge party when you graduate from speech

therapy sooner than later ! Wishing you the best. Keep us posted!

Leigh

>

> I've been posting for a little over a week now. My son is 21 months old and

only says a handful (maybe 15) words. In these last couple of weeks, I've been

working with him and he can now (on demand) blow, pucker, and has been

exclusively drinking through a straw. He's never had a problem eating, can feed

himself well with a fork (self-spoon feeding is still messy), dances, runs,

gives hugs and kisses, snaps his fingers and " sings " . What I mean by singing is

that I will sing a song such as " This Old Man " , and he will go " duh duh duh " ,

but carry the sing-song intonation (make sense)? I've also started him on 1

ProEFA capsule a day as well as a multi-vitamin (flinstones)

>

> I've expressed my concerns with his speech to his pedi, who has referred us

for a hearing test (which was perfect) and also to our local CDSA office and he

will be going to his initial evaluation in the morning. Here are some of my

questions I'm hoping will be answered by someone who's " been there " so I'll know

what I'm looking at.

>

> 1) They're talking about besides a speech/communication eval, also doing a

gross/fine motor skills eval... I do not feel that this is an issue. They are

concerned with possible apraxia and that this eval may help with diagnosis. Are

apraxic children generally delayed in their gross/fine motor skills? How would I

know (besides the eval) if he may be delayed there?

>

> 2) Given the information above as to what he can do on demand such as pucker

and blow for kisses or a pinwheel or making the " ooo " sound, does this sound

apraxic or just delayed?

>

> 3) Given his age (21m) is it possible that it could only be a delay rather

than apraxic?

>

> 4) Like I said I've been giving him a ProEFA daily for a week now (maybe

that's helped with the blowing and puckering and a new word or two), but if he

isn't apraxic, he could still benefit from this, right?

>

> Sorry for all the questions, I just feel so uneducated about this and want to

be armed with info when I go in there tomorrow with him.

>