My Children

I realize now that I have not introduced you to my children and therefore I must rectify that situation!!

My daughter is Abby.  She will be turning 4 at the beginning of August.  It is so hard to believe!  My little girl - no longer a baby - no longer a toddler - officially a kid - and officially entering that stage of manipulation.  You know the "if you love me", "but so and so's parents let her"; and the lying stage "but Daddy said yes", "I didn't hit Andy".  For those with kids this age you know what I mean.  No longer are the tantrums taking up 2 minutes on the floor screaming but they are suggestive and mean.  It's slamming doors and throwing toys.  Ah motherhood!!  But my little girl is one of the most stubborn persons I have ever met - and because of that she excels at all she attempts to do!!  She hits a baseball with a bat without a tee, can hit a golf ball on her first attempt, memorizes songs and makes up her own words.  But most of all she overcomes a specific speech disorder on a daily basis.  Bless her heart she actually coaches people into understanding - and even is patient to repeat her missed words to get her point across.  Although occasionally she gives up and changes the subject she does try to get any other person to understand her.  She is my little princess!  I intend to follow her progress as she continues to battle with Apraxia.

My son Andy is as much of a challenge as his sister but in different ways.  He is 15 mths old and a terror around the house.  He climbs and destroys.  A boy to his core there is no mistaking his brute-ness.  Like his sister he rolled over a little early and crawled a little early and walked a little early.  But where as Abby was trying to say words at this age Andy has a problem saying anything at all.  Let me give a quick background on my little brute.  He was delivered early - cause quite frankly neither he or I wanted him in any longer!! : )  He suffered from severe jaundice right after birth and was under the lights for 3 days.  Severe was an understatement - Andy's bilirubin was 14.7, at 16 he could have suffered from brain damage. Andy also suffered from feeding issues due to a severe tongue tie.  Tongue tie is a condition in which the tongue is connected  from base to tip to the bottom of the mouth.  Andy gained no weight his first month because he was unable to nurse or properly take a bottle - we were syringe feeding him.  We decided the best route was to clip his tongue - he was able to feed within seconds of clipping the skin that connected his tongue to the bottom of his mouth and after that gained weight pretty quickly.

Why all this background that I am filling you in on??  Abby's SLP had indicated that Apraxia is hereditary and commonly found in sibling so we should watch Andy close for any problems with speech.  When he turned a year the SLP noticed that Andy didn't babble and showed no interest in speaking.  We were able to get "Mama" out of him but only briefly and not consistently.  So Abby's SLP suggested we get Andy assessed for any developmental or speech issues.  So we did.

The result - severe delay in speech in areas of expression and adaptive qualities.  However, Andy's cognitive abilities ranked off the charts.  We have been having problems with Andy recently with tantrums.  He will scream at us and if we do not get him what he wants or understand what he needs he will throw himself on the ground or start head butting anything close (pillows, walls, you).  The therapist doing the evaluation said that because of his strong cognitive skills and his lack of speech we are probably witnessing his frustration at not being able to communicate.  Andy qualified for speech services to start in a month or so.  The goal now is to see if he is delayed because of the tongue tie at birth or does he have something more severely wrong like Apraxia (hard to diagnose before 2).  Andy's first goal will be to drink out of a straw....

So both my kiddos have their own version of speech delays.  I wait to one day hear and understand them.  Every word.

The Joy of a "Doughnut"

I don't know how to explain how proud I was when my daughter made the "t" sound in final position.  I remember asking her what she would like for breakfast and as clear as any 3 year old could be she said "I wanna doughnut."  I couldn't help myself I cried.  I called everyone I knew and had her repeat the word.  Every repeat was right one.  Every single one - which is a big thing for a child with apraxia!

I remember being proud with the first roll over, the first crawl, the first sound and all those other important firsts.  With my daughter I consistently get firsts and I consistently cry about them!!  The first time she made a "K" sound the first time she said a consonant/vowel (C/V) word,the first time she said a whole sentence.  These are firsts I will always remember, just like when she used to scootch backwards around the living room.  She makes me proud everyday that something new takes route in her words.

I wait patiently for my son to also take flight with his speech - for I know I will be as gracious as I am with my little girl.

Apraxia of Speech

Imagine if you knew the words you wanted to say but when you put out the effort to say them the words became intelligible?  Frustrating!  Imagine trying to understand and translate for someone whose words were missing? Frustrating!  But that is every day in a family who have loved ones with Verbal Apraxia.

Apraxia (CAS) is a specific speech disorder in which a child has difficulty planning specific movements with their jaw, palate, lips and tongue in order to create speech.  The brain does not tell the muscles to perform in the right sequence and therefore words become intelligible.

My Daughter was diagnosed with Apraxia when she was a little over 3 years old.  When she was 2 she was diagnosed with ELD (Expressive Language Disorder) but did not qualify for speech services.  When she turned 3 we took her to be evaluated by the public school district.  At this point any words that she had used in the past she had dropped and no longer could say.  She was considered non-verbal.

My Daughter started working with a school district assigned SLP (speech and language pathologist) with the assumption that she had ELD.  The SLP evaluated her in several categories and learned that her vocabulary was above normal expectations for her age and she was able to used that vocabulary properly.  This ruled out ELD as a possible diagnosis.  My daughter showed no signs of any other speech related delay so the SLP started working with her through a phonic approach.

After several months of this approach my daughter showed no improvement and in some cases had actually dropped sounds that she had previously mastered.  Her SLP decided to take another route.  She decided to work with Praxis Cards.  Praxis means "planned movement".  These cards broke down words with wrong sounds that moved into right sounds.  A progression of sounds that lead to the right words.  She did well with Praxis cards but there was a continuous loss of progression or addition of sounds that were not in the words - such as an "a" at the beginning or end of a word.  My daughters SLP was able to diagnose her with Verbal Apraxia through her observances of the inaccuracies of my daughters speech.

Now that we had a diagnosis we knew that there would be more issues to come.  Soon my daughter started to show signs that a sensory issue existed - signs that when she was younger we thought was "just her age".  Such as not wanting to eat certain foods.  Being on the "white diet".  Now at 4 she still eats hardly anything.  She does not like certain textures - she will tell you that colored foods "feel silly".  She also can not handle foods that are warm or hot.  She does ok with cold things like ice cream and popsicles but her dinners meals we have to bring to room temperature before she will eat it - no hot temp - not even luke warm.  She also confuses hot/cold and hearing/smelling/tasting.  For instance she will cover her ears if something doesn't look right or cover her mouth if something is too loud.

So our journey with Apraxia begins.


find out more about Apraxia @ Apraxia-KIDS

A few specific Links:
Dear Teacher
If I could only tell you I would say