Re: Re:pls help,... how to accurately diagnose apraxia

[Guest guest]

she is not wrking on that , she just mentioned about apraxia. thanks for all

your response...

From: NotefrmSue@... <NotefrmSue@...>

Subject: [ ] Re:pls help,... how to accurately diagnose

apraxia

Date: Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 6:18 AM

 

Is your son receiving any oral motor therapy from your SLP. If you don't know

what this is,are her fingers in his outh doing massage/stretching techniques?

Has she mentioned if he has dysarthia?

[Guest guest]

I am not an expert, but all of the things you describe (your son used to drool,

he had trouble blowing, had difficulty learning to suck from a straw) etc. are

signs that your son may have low muscle tone in his face which is called

dysarthia. My son received almost a year of therapy from an SLP who was

doing just a little bit of oral motor. He made progress but it was very very

slow and not any big gains. In June I started getting him oral motor

therapy from an SLP (Debra Beckman) for 1/2 hour per week and I do the exercises

with him at home several times per day (they take about 5 minutes and the

exercises are different each week). I had no idea that all of those things

you describe were affected by his muscles not working properly. I saw a

tremendous difference in my sons speech when we started to address the

dsyarthia. My son since June has learned all of the sounds of the alphabet,

has gained words and is starting to pair two words together. He is still

behind his peers but he is making a ton of progress.

Some other signs besides what your son can do is when you look at his profile,

does his chin look a little saggy underneath like baby fat? If he is not

normally prone to much baby fat, he may have problem that the muscle on the

underside of his chin is not strengthened thus the tongue is not in the correct

position in his mouth. In addition, if you gently grabbed one of his lips

between your fingers and asked him to pull his lips out of your grasp would he

be able to do it without pulling his head away (meaning straigtening his lips to

do it)? Could he blow a cotton ball across the table? Lots of things

you could do to see where he is at.

I strongly recommend you have someone check him out that is very familiar and

good at oral motor. Your little guy may just need some help in this area.

Debra Beckman told me that a little girl came in this week that had no words but

high receptively. After four sessions the little girl was talking with 2

words at a time!!! I haven't had any miracle story like that myself, but I

must say there was a time I never thought my son would even say Mama so I will

take my slower paced successes. If you have more questions feel free to email

me NotefrmSue@...

Sue

[ ] Re:pls help,... how to accurately diagnose

apraxia

Date: Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 6:18 AM

Is your son receiving any oral motor therapy from your SLP. If you don't know

what this is,are her fingers in his outh doing massage/stretching techniques?

Has she mentioned if he has dysarthia?