Re: Social skills of verbal apraxia children?-Janice

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JAnice:

In your previous post below outlining all the things you've done for you kiddo,

I'm interested to better understand what " labs " you did. My 2.5 yr old son has

mild verbal apraxia and we're starting to look into food sensitivity testing

since we've seen so many success stories about ridding the body of things that

become toxins to these kids. I'm completely new on this front...we just did a

more traditional prick test today and, as I assumed, nothing came back as an

allergen. I keep being told IGG, IGG, IGG test - IGG test to be precise,

but there are so many conflicting reports on whether or not these are

correct/effective/etc. I hate to change our entire lifestyle/diet for a test

result that's totally inconclusive.

All the traditional allergists/docs have told us Igg is a waste of time, but all

the moms I hear stories from swear by it. Any guidance on the types of testing

you had run, etc would be helpful. I just don't know where to begin, and even

though we've been told our sons apraxia is mild, he is just 2.5 yrs old and you

just never know what the next few years has in store.

Thanks in advance for your time!

Sharon

> >

> > Kids with apraxia generally do well with kids who are one or two

> years younger then them or one or two years older then them. I would

> look for playmates with this type of mix.

> >

> > Sherry,

> >

> > Have you looked at Josh's auditory sequential processing at all?

> We worked with Mark's processing at NACD using digit spans. When he

> was just a little older then Josh at 11.5, we started with NACD, they

> tested his short term auditory memory and it was that of a 5 year

> old! YIKES! No wonder he was struggling so much! We worked his

> auditory short term memory 4 times a day for 2 minutes at a time for

> 8 months and normalized it. The difference to his frustration level,

> his maturity, his abilities at school, following instructions,

> socialization and EVERYTHING were amazing. It was very hard work but

> it was a huge key for Mark. After we had brought just this one thing

> up to normal, Mark was discharged from special education where he was

> considered a lifer. This normalized Mark's conversation and language

> but he still had poor articulation.

> >

> > After we got this up to speed, we did daily oral motor exercises to

> work his tongue, his jaw, his lips.... got the motor planning going

> and we thus got clearer and clearer speech. This had the affect of

> really normalizing Mark's articulation but we still had a lot of

> dopey behavior and he was very forgetful and ADD-like.

> >

> > Then I discovered biomed. I got myself a DAN doctor. We found

> that Mark had a high lead load as well as arsenic and mercury burden

> in his body. Last January, we used oral DMSA to chelate out the

> lead. With each round, the dopey ADD like behavior went away and

> diminished. His maturity levels and self help skills blossomed. He

> started to become indistinguishable from his peers in most areas. I

> went to a parent-teacher conference last night and the teachers that

> Mark had from last year tell me that he is a completely different kid

> today. Mark used to literally fall out of school at the end of each

> day, he was so fatigued but with chelation and supplements, that is

> no longer the case.

> >

> > Muscle tone: We changed Mark's diet up, examined his food

> sensitivities and took a good hard look at his labs. His energy

> pathways were not working properly and he was really only

> manufacturing enough energy to support his heart and vital organs and

> was not producing enough energy to provide extra to his extremities

> such as speech and his hands or enough to build muscle on his body.

> We started giving him a supplement regime designed to support the

> mitochondria or what is known as a mito cocktail. This generally

> consists of COQ10, carnitine, EFA's for good fats and vitamin C & E

> as antioxidants. Within 3-4 months, Mark's energy levels drastically

> improved but we are still working on his body's ability to create

> muscle. Eventually, we will add creatine in for this but at present,

> he doesn't tolerate the amino acids nor the B vitamins all that well

> and we are working at repairing his metabolic processes slowly but

> surely.

> >

> > Involved in this energy pathway is the basic conversion of

> tryptophan into seratonin and dopamine. These are neurotransmittors

> and you can do specific neurotransmittor testing to see which areas

> are out of whack. A child who is having problems with impuslivity

> can often benefit from the supplementation of Gaba at bedtime. A

> child who is having issues with depression probably needs some 5HTP

> at bedtime to up his levels. You can get really good

> neurotransmittor testing done and find out 'exactly' where the

> chemical imbalance is and then supplement accordingly. These

> supplements often work better then the prescriptions because you are

> attacking the true deficiency.. .. the true core of the problem and

> working it naturally delivers better long term results that are

> easier on the body with zero side affects, imo. Mark's tryptophan

> levels are very low and we just started supplementing this at

> bedtime. This can result in foggy, innatentive behavior along with

> low levels of 'initiative' ..... little verve and zest! I know kids

> who are on Ritalin and others who are on the anti-depresents and to

> be frank, the longer they stay on this junk.... the more 'changed' in

> their personality they become..... and it is not a good change, it is

> a weird change. Having seen some of these children and watched them

> through time, I wouldn't use this stuff for my child on a long term

> basis only if I absolutely had to.... if there was no other way....

> for a short term period.... until I could get the processes repaired

> biomedically.

> >

> > Inherent in all of this is a lack of digestive enzymes or a

> disruption of the enzymes in the body which do not allow for the

> proper digestion and absorbtion of foods. We need our food to be

> properly digested, absorbed and sythesized for all of the biochemical

> processes in our body to work properly. If something gets tossed out

> of whack, the entire system is affected. For Mark and many others,

> he has trouble digesting carbohydrates and proteins. He is thus not

> getting enough of absorbable vitamin B, fats, carnitine, etc. into

> his system to keep his methylation pathway working efficiently.

> Thus, his energy pathways are a real mess and affect many, many areas

> of function.... . from neurotransmittors (which affect behavior and

> mood), to ATP production (energy delivery pathway) to the production

> of glutathione (detoxification pathways.... glutathione helps our

> bodies get rid of 'junk'). Because of inefficient digestion of

> foods, many of our kids tend to have issues in all of these processes.

> >

> > We just went Stateside to see our DAN and had more testing done. I

> can tell by the dramatic improvements in Mark's function, his energy

> levels and his blossoming NT social life that everything is working

> extremely well. Via this testing, we will find out what is working

> better and where we need to continue to bring his body forth

> completely to good health. We probably won't get the results back

> until March but they will tell me a 'whole' lot and give us a plan of

> effective action.

> >

> > Our only physical issues that remain are Mark's hands and his

> visual motor skills or lack therof. Everything else (including

> speech) is now completely NT. This is slowly getting better and I

> have no doubt that once we get the remaining mercury from his body,

> repair his methylation cycle..... this will go away and he will have

> the rest of his life to enjoy the benefits of the hard work we have

> done.

> >

> > Note that I did not start all of this until Mark was almost 12. He

> just turned 14 at Christmas time and he is a different kid with a new

> life. Everything has changed for him and he is having the happiest

> year of his life at school this year. I am a single mom and have had

> to pay for most of this out of pocket but it all was not nearly as

> expensive as I thought it would be. The most expensive part are the

> really comprehensive labs. The labwork we did last week was $653 but

> if I had been from the US, I believe that a lot of it would have been

> covered by insurance. They have special codes available for this

> apparently. Those labs are so, so worth it because you get an

> extremely detailed picture of what is going on inside of your

> child..... why they cannot get muscle tone and why they are

> struggling so much metabolically. Most of this stuff is truely

> physical in nature and we need to look at the science of the body as

> well as the therapy.

> >

> > Thought that I would share.....

> >

> > Janice

> > Mother of Mark, 14

> >

> >

> > [childrensapraxiane t] Social skills of verbal apraxia

> children?

> >

> > Our 28 month old was recently diagnosed with moderate to severe

> verbal

> > apraxia. Currently our son doesn't deal well playing with other

> > children his age. I am a stay-at-home mom, but we are involved in

> a

> > playgroup, library story time, and church groups so he is exposed

> to

> > other children. He has an older sister, age 5, they get along

> well.

> > When playing with older children, he does fine. Examples: Today I

> > helped at my daughter's preschool & my son came along. The

> children

> > played duck-duck goose and he got right in there and got along

> great

> > with these 5-year-old kids. A couple days ago at playgroup, it

> was

> > complete opposite. He was fine playing on the floor with toys,

> but if

> > a child around his age got in his space (not even taking away his

> toy,

> > just getting near him), he gets upset. He doesn't hit, he just

> gets

> > flustered and comes running to me. I know part of his frustration

> is

> > he can't vocalize, but we are trying to work with him on getting

> past

> > this point.

> >

> > Has anyone else had this similar social behavior with their child

> > diagnosed with apraxia? I'm just trying to get a grasp if this

> has

> > anything to do with apraxia or if it's just a terrible 2 phase.

> Thanks

> > for taking the time to read.

> >

> >