2 1/2 year old with Apraxia...me too!

April 25, 2010

Just this week, we were told that my two and half year old son has

apraxia. We started early intervention at 27 months and in a matter of 3-4

months he went from 4 words, to spontaneously saying almost all words (and now

can string 3,4,5 words together at a time). In so many ways he seems to fit the

mold of a " late talker " despite the fact that his pronunciation is VERY POOR.

He is SUPER SMART and extremely personable, and had such an elaborate babble and

gesture system from the time he was 15 months that we never suspected anything

was wrong.

When my husband and I really started working on speech and sounds with him (at

26 months), had NO IDEA how to imitate a single sound. We would prompt

him to say " MMMMM " and he would reply " GUH. " It wasn't until he really watched

our mouths and practiced each individual sound that he got them. It was

suggested through early intervention that he had an oral motor issue, but we

didn't really know what that meant (they would NOT say the word apraxia to us

even when I asked our SLP directly).

We finally took him to a private outpatient SLP who (within 5 minutes) said she

thought it was apraxia. We were relieved to find someone who seemed to know how

to deal with this but DEVASTED because our little has a long road ahead

of him. We knew there was something wrong (you can tell that it takes a

lot of thought to produce the proper words and sounds), but were hoping it

wasn't a cognitive/neurological issue.

We just started him on Omega 3 and we are on waiting lists for developmental

pediatrians and a pediatric neurologist to get him fully checked out. We wish

we did this MONTHS ago, but are happy to be on the right road.

THANK YOU FOR THIS WEB SITE! I've cried a lot of tears going through this

process and reading your stories, but find so much comfort in everyone's advice

and hope.

THANKS!

Anne

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