"MAAAAA" comes the noise of my 2 1/2 year old from his bedroom when he hears his father coming home for the day. "MAAA, MAAA!!!" The excitement as he runs to the door is all over his face, in his wide eyes and his opened mouth smile.
Some people may look at my little man and wonder why "MAA"? I look at my little man and cheer for it. The truth is Andy just started saying sounds in the past few months. He started private speech therapy in May and ever since his sounds are blossoming. I do not mind being the only mom in the room proud of his animal sounds even though they do not come out just right. I am just so happy to see him try them.
My husband doesn't mind being called "MAA" either because at least Andy calls him.
Andy's diagnosis???? He doesn't have one. The therapist are pretty certain that Andy has CAS but they are cautious to diagnose him. For now they treat him for severe language delay and see how he progresses.
More to come from Andy in the next months I am sure. For now, I do not mind getting a prompted "Pa, ah, Pa" (pop) or a "O, Pa" (open). It was a 10 month battle to get him to imitate... and now that he does it game on!!!
Showing posts with label expressive language disorder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label expressive language disorder. Show all posts
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Friday, August 5, 2011
What do you want?
"EH" - "EH" - "EHHHHH" this is the sound you can hear from my 15 month old throughout the day. Does he want food? Does he want to sleep? Does he want a toy? What is it that he wants? I can tell you on most days I lose a little bit of the patience that I have built up over time. "What do you want!?!?!"
It is like when you brought your newborn home. Every sound that new precious package made you soon found out meant food, sleep, bond time, playtime. I feel this 15 months later. Like I am trying to guess what every cry or sound means. The problem lies in the fact that my little man has specific wants now. He wants "that" toy or "that" thing to eat. It's a guessing game - a long, long, long guessing game. Eventually you will get what he wants but it takes a while - or he just gives up on you.
So many of you may be saying "well, Melissa, come on he is only 15 months". I respond by saying that that is what we told ourselves about Abby for the longest time. Well she is only 18 mths, she's only 2 year, she's only 3. When does it end?? I refuse to play that game. Andrew is trying to tell us what he needs - but all that is coming out is that he needs something.
Finger pointing - thats what I want!! I want him to point to what he wants. Point to what he needs. This most children do at this age - but expressively, Andy does not use this communication skill.
The state we live in offers an early development program called Birth to 3. Given that Abby has CAS we thought that we should have Andy evaluated. Just before Andy turned 15 months B23 came to evaluate Andy for any developmental concerns. There are many areas of concern regarding Andy. After Andy's 15 month check up with the pediatrician they are also concerned about Andy's development.
Most of the concerns regarding Andrew are the following:
In Communication:
Slightly below average in Receptive Language: this is the understanding of language that others speak
Significantly below average in Expressing Language: this is is the language that an individual uses to make verbalizations and to use words.
In Adaptive (self - Help) - this addresses eating, dressing, toileting and personal responsibility.
Andy was assessed to be significantly below average.
The plan?? Well we have a few more tests to have done on Andy - a Oral Motor Control test and a hearing test. However, the group found Andy significantly behind and therefore will start working with us (Andy & his family) on adaptive and communication issues.
Andy's service coordinator and I spoke at length yesterday about what the needs of Andy and the needs of his family is at this point in time. The biggest thing is the ability to communicate. Although CAS is not diagnosed until much later - there was talk about how the areas specific to his delays are also areas of delay in children with CAS. Because of that - the first thing we will try is getting Andy to point to pictures. The other goal is to introduce signing. Andy will start receiving services in 2 weeks. We are hoping that we can at least get Andy to start gesturing.
Until then we will try our best to understand "EH".
It is like when you brought your newborn home. Every sound that new precious package made you soon found out meant food, sleep, bond time, playtime. I feel this 15 months later. Like I am trying to guess what every cry or sound means. The problem lies in the fact that my little man has specific wants now. He wants "that" toy or "that" thing to eat. It's a guessing game - a long, long, long guessing game. Eventually you will get what he wants but it takes a while - or he just gives up on you.
So many of you may be saying "well, Melissa, come on he is only 15 months". I respond by saying that that is what we told ourselves about Abby for the longest time. Well she is only 18 mths, she's only 2 year, she's only 3. When does it end?? I refuse to play that game. Andrew is trying to tell us what he needs - but all that is coming out is that he needs something.
Finger pointing - thats what I want!! I want him to point to what he wants. Point to what he needs. This most children do at this age - but expressively, Andy does not use this communication skill.
The state we live in offers an early development program called Birth to 3. Given that Abby has CAS we thought that we should have Andy evaluated. Just before Andy turned 15 months B23 came to evaluate Andy for any developmental concerns. There are many areas of concern regarding Andy. After Andy's 15 month check up with the pediatrician they are also concerned about Andy's development.
Most of the concerns regarding Andrew are the following:
In Communication:
Slightly below average in Receptive Language: this is the understanding of language that others speak
Significantly below average in Expressing Language: this is is the language that an individual uses to make verbalizations and to use words.
In Adaptive (self - Help) - this addresses eating, dressing, toileting and personal responsibility.
Andy was assessed to be significantly below average.
The plan?? Well we have a few more tests to have done on Andy - a Oral Motor Control test and a hearing test. However, the group found Andy significantly behind and therefore will start working with us (Andy & his family) on adaptive and communication issues.
Andy's service coordinator and I spoke at length yesterday about what the needs of Andy and the needs of his family is at this point in time. The biggest thing is the ability to communicate. Although CAS is not diagnosed until much later - there was talk about how the areas specific to his delays are also areas of delay in children with CAS. Because of that - the first thing we will try is getting Andy to point to pictures. The other goal is to introduce signing. Andy will start receiving services in 2 weeks. We are hoping that we can at least get Andy to start gesturing.
Until then we will try our best to understand "EH".
Saturday, July 23, 2011
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)