Therapy for apraxic 18 month old

[Guest guest]

I am looking for any good information from any current SLPs that have had

success working with young children with apraxia of speech.

He cannot imitate words. Asking him to do so for any word results in

" bababababa. " There is no variation to that sequence. He can imitate " mmm " in

isolation. He can imitate the word " pop " but only if he whispers the word as he

cannot control voicing. He can imitate " ah " but it is always " ah-ah-ah. " He

can imitate " h " but not if there is vowel after the consonant. That is it.

Very seldomly he will babble a /d/ or an /n/ but that may happen only once per

day or not at all. Asking him to repeat the /d/ sound he just said results in

" babababa. " He uses " baba " for anything he wants or needs.

Any suggestions on where to begin? He has no other vowels besides " ah. " He gets

SO frustrated when asked to say anything at all. Do I begin with CV for the " m "

" p " and " b " sounds? Should I begin to try to teach him different vowels? If

so, how do you suggest I go about doing that? He cannot do it by just auditory

stimuli, so do you think I should start using tactile stimuli to teach him how

to say the vowels? Should I even begin any other consonant sounds other than

the early ones (p, b, m, w, h)

He is so young that I am worried I will push him far beyond what he is phyically

capable of doing.

Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. I will be seeing him

4x/week for 30 minutes each session.

Thank you,