Saying hi and not sure what to do next

[Guest guest]

I just joined this list and I wanted to say hi.

I have a 3.5 y.o. daughter with autism. She was diagnosed in March 2010 with

moderate-severe autism. We've been doing a number of biomedical interventions

and most of the symptoms of autism have really tapered off.

Now, " all that's left " (and it's a big " all that's left " ) is speech. I have

tried a number of speech supplements that have worked to varying degrees and,

the latest, we have been trying DMG, which has worked very well at improving

verbal behavior. Her focus has been awesome and it has made drastic

improvements in receptive language. Almost immediately, her ABA therapists and

preschool teachers noticed the change.

With all the other symptoms corrected, I'm left with what I think is verbal

apraxia now. She is really working hard at trying to communicate with words.

The teachers and therapists at her specialized preschool are doing a really

great job at teaching her and I think that in a short while, we have overcome

many of the challenges that are associated with autism.

My daughter has no trouble following directions. She still needs to gain more

receptive language. She still will not go get her shoes when asked. But most

other things, she is doing very well. She seems to have no learning disability

or cognitive delays.

Our greatest challenge right now is expressive language. She is trying to make

words but the word approximations are not consistent. Some of the things that

make me think that apraxia is an issue are:

1. For banana, she sometimes says " bana " or just " ana " .

2. For " stop " , approximations vary from " stah " to " sohp " to " stahp "

3. She has a few words like " more " " no " , " mama " or " mah-ee " (for mommy), that

sound consistent.

4. Up until just before she turned 3, she drooled excessively. After I pulled

the problem foods from her diet, the excessive drooling stopped and babbling

began, at age 3 years, 2 months.

I've been trying a few things in terms of supplementation that have helped.

Before any supplementation, she was completely without words or sounds. Her

behavior of trying to make sounds with meanings have only emerged after

supplementation.

The speech supplements I'm using are:

1. Carnosine (I give zinc too to support its absorption) and the addition of

carnosine has helped to improve her overall muscle tone.

2. Methyl B-12 (folinic acid and carnitine also given to support absorption)

3. DMG (folinic acid and carnitine also given to support absorption).

The DMG made the biggest difference. The carnosine also helped with overall

tone.

But the consistency with word approximations isn't there. I'm strongly

suspecting verbal apraxia. I just don't know what to do next. And, she will

not make sound approximations in ABA. She is making gains in every other aspect

of her ABA programs but has made zero gains in verbal imitation...which also

makes me think that either this was a misdiagnosis or that all the other areas

that present as problems with autism have subsided and we are left with apraxia.

Anyhow, I don't know what to make of this. I don't know what else to do. Does

anyone have any ideas about any other things I should be doing?

We are doing some speech therapy but I think the speech pathologist does not

know to look for apraxia. She is suggesting play skills, which are good but I

don't think they are helping to address the problem of apraxia (although I don't

know for sure, maybe I'm wrong). I don't know how to get her to make certain

sounds when prompted. I live in Ontario (Canada) and I don't even know what I

should be looking for in a speech pathologist who specializes in apraxia.

Any suggestions? I feel kind of defeated sometimes about the lack of gain in

speech and sometimes I feel we're not going down the right road in ST. The

speech paths and ABA therapists are spending a lot of time getting my daughter

to learn how to exchange pictures but she does that no problem. She understands

that different pictures are for different things and we're spending a lot of

time just exchanging any card for an object, which I know she already knows how

to do and she knows how to discern between pictures and we don't need 10

sessions to do that.

I just don't know what to do now...