Re: new here....looking for some insight!

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

It's really hard to say, even SLPs can't tell for sure at this age. My daughter

had fewer words and fewer sounds at that age and she is severely apraxic still,

but apraxia has various degrees too. The hall mark of apraxia is inconsistency,

Doers he say it one way one time and in a different way the next. Does he

sometimes not say it at all, just points and grunts or uses a completly

different sound to mean that object that he said just a while ago? Apraxic kids

do use jargon, meaning the same sounds, group of sounds for a variety of words

and these groups of sounds not only are used indiscriminately, but also change

every so often, so even these are not the same. They also can't repeat when

asked or barely say a sound and not the whole word and multisyllabic words or

sentences are the most difficult. they cannot consistently motor plan their

speech.

Now in the beginning some other speech disorders can take this form, but not for

long. If your read Dr. Agin's book The Late Talker you will understand that

it's not easy to diagnose apraxia at an early age, but as the child grows if

these specific speech characteristics continue it is most likely apraxia. So

precisely because some kids who exhibit these difficulties do have apraxia, it

is best to treat them all as if they did and if they resolve as they mature

that's fine, all the better, but if they do indeed have apraxia you know you are

giving them the early intervention they need with a good motor planning SLP.

I know it's hard for parents to make this call, I for one waited too long and

when I did seek treatment I didn't really understand that her best chance was to

assume apraxia and take it from there. So I feel I wasted precious time just

waiting for her to start talking and doing the 1 h of regular speech therapy

with Early Start which was a complete waste of our time. But everyone around

including her doctor was advising to wait, saying she seemed like a typical

child in all other respects minus some social behavioral issues which are part

of the package witrh sopeech delays in general and even more so with speech

disorders. And about 3 quarters of the kids do resolve and speak fine by 3 or

so. The point is you can't make that assumption and must be proactive. Here's a

link from Dr. Agin's book that may help:

http://www.shop-in-service.com/letter.htm

All the best,

--Elena, mom to Ziana age 3.10 --severely apraxic but making good steady

progress now that appropriate speech therapy/diet/supplements have been

implemented.

mhope1227 <mhope1227@...> wrote: hi everyone. i'm looking for some help

from you all. my son is

almost 2 1/2 and currently has a SLP and a specialized instructor

through EI. my problem is no one is saying if he has apraxia or not

and i am so confused by everything i read. in a nut shell - he

babbles all the time - his babble is in sentences with hand gestures

and different tones of voice. He also has a vocab of about 30 words

that I can understand. he is very into the " d " sound. but also does

m, n, b, etc. his words include mama, dada, bye bye, night night,

ball, boat, truck, banana, no , all done,bubble,oh no, uh oh, door,

etc. that gives you an idea of his words. he also makes up words and

then uses them conistently, such as gee is pretzel. he can stick out

his tongue, smiles all the time, can suck in his lower lip but has

trouble blowing bubbles, but he can blow a whistle.

Ok - this is getting too long but i wanted to give you some info on

him so you can see if he sounds like it could be apraxia or just a

delay?????? any insight would be helpful! thanks, maria

------------------------------------