Childhood Apraxia of Speech

[Quasqueton]

This board has proven to be a treasure trove of knowledge on many varied subjects, so I’d like to tap the general knowledge here for something.

Do you know anyone with, or anything about Developmental Apraxia of Speech?

I’m not looking for Web links – I have Googled and more on the Web, already. I’m wondering if someone here has real experience with it, either themselves or in someone they know.

For those who don’t know what DAS is, it is a neurological disorder that hinders speech. Children with it are much slower with developing their verbal skills because of a problem somewhere between their brain and their speech muscles. A person with this could post on this board and you would never know they had it, because it only affects the verbal, spoken word -- not communication in general.

So, anyone here have any info or stories?

Quasqueton

 

[Ambrus]

Three of my first cousins' children (born to two female maternal cousins of mine) were all born with some type of inner ear disorder which limited their hearing range and in turn greatly hindered their ability to learn to speak. Neither of them (two girls and one boy) could speak much, if at all, throughout their first two or three years. Eventually they were properly diagnosed and a operation (the details of which I'm rather vague on but I believe involved placing a small tube through the ear-drum) helped restore normal hearing, after which they all started to slowly catch up with learning to talk with the help of speech therapists. Nowadays the boy, the eldest of the three, can't be made to shut up.

It doesn't sound like DAS to me, though the symptoms seem similar enough. I figured I'd toss out my own limited experience with a similar problem since you asked.

 

[takyris]

The only experience I've had with it is second-or-third-hand -- the nonprofit I used to work for did Hippotherapy (ha, ha, yes, it's extremely funny. Please keep reading once you've finished the jokes), which is definied as Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, or Speech & Language Pathology using the horse as part of the training regimen.

(In PT or OT, it's pretty simple -- riding on a horse provides the same visual motion as walking, but is much easier from a balance perspective, so a lot of stroke victims who can't walk because (to dumb it down enough that I understand it) "the steady-cam in their head no longer works" can re-learn to walk by riding. So you have a lot of therapy involving kids or adults on horseback doing slow rides around an arena while doing motor-skill work like shape sorters or mimicking movements.)

I'd heard of using Hippotherapy as an SLP tool as well, partly because the movement of the horse gets the patient to "stop thinking and talk" in cases where the brain is sort of working against itself, and partly because a lot of kids who won't talk to adults will say "Hello horsey" to the horse. (And on the days when I was ticked off about stuffing envelopes and making copies, hearing a kid who doesn't otherwise ever say ANYTHING say that to the horse was a pretty good reminder of why I was doing what I was doing.)

Sorry I don't have anything more direct than that. Why do you ask?

(Oh, and from ASL classes -- if you're dealing with a friend or family member with this, the most important thing is that they learn to be communicating somehow. Someone who communicates one way can learn to communicate another way. Someone pushed to only use words when they don't have any other form of communication gets frustrated really really fast. (As I recall, the suicide rates for deaf U.S. teens who lip-read was huge compared to the suicide rates for deaf teens who signed.))

 

[Quasqueton]

It doesn't sound like DAS to me, though the symptoms seem similar enough. I figured I'd toss out my own limited experience with a similar problem since you asked.

Thanks for the response. Different cause, but there may be similarity in the learning to speak later than normal.

Hippotherapy (ha, ha, yes, it's extremely funny. Please keep reading once you've finished the jokes)

One word that most here should recognize: hippogriff.

I'd heard of using Hippotherapy as an SLP tool as well

I’ve heard mention of this too. We may look into it as an option.

Sorry I don't have anything more direct than that. Why do you ask?

Thanks for the response and info. It looks like my 2-year-old son has it, and we’re working with him on it. He has had a speech therapist once a week for a couple months, now, and she is suggesting he get therapy twice a week. We expect an official diagnosis of it very soon.

He is perfectly normal developmentally (mentally and physically) otherwise. In fact, he is ahead of normal in most areas he’s been tested for (he has a big brother to keep up with). He’s just having a very hard time saying some words (mouth just won’t form the sounds) – especially multi-syllable words and sentences (mouth just won’t form the sounds).

Quasqueton

 

[mythusmage]

Thanks for the response. Different cause, but there may be similarity in the learning to speak later than normal.

One word that most here should recognize: hippogriff.

I’ve heard mention of this too. We may look into it as an option.

Thanks for the response and info. It looks like my 2-year-old son has it, and we’re working with him on it. He has had a speech therapist once a week for a couple months, now, and she is suggesting he get therapy twice a week. We expect an official diagnosis of it very soon.

He is perfectly normal developmentally (mentally and physically) otherwise. In fact, he is ahead of normal in most areas he’s been tested for (he has a big brother to keep up with). He’s just having a very hard time saying some words (mouth just won’t form the sounds) – especially multi-syllable words and sentences (mouth just won’t form the sounds).

Quasqueton

Funny, but I thought all two year olds had trouble forming the words right. Something to do with gross and fine anatomy at that age. It really isn't until the age of four that the equipment is the right shape.

 

[Treebore]

Its problems with multi-syllable words and formation and saying sentences that are the key to the diagnosis.

My only exposure to this is when my 10 year olds school was harassing him about having problems (and still is) with words containing "th". When he concentrates on it and tries he is able to say the words properly.

I told them to leave him alone, he is just being lazy about talking correctly and when his peers start to tease him about talking like a baby he'll straighten up real fast.

I think he has realized that I was right, because since then he has been making very concious efforts to say "th" words correctly. He is getting better.

Anyways, they tried to say they suspected he had this same problem, or one of several other possibilities. I pointed out they were missing the obvious one, laziness. Seems like I am right again, because he has gotten a lot better about them in the last two months. Completely on his own. I suspect in another month or two he will never mispronounce "th" words again.


The only bit of advice I can give, is if you have difficulty believing the therapist, get another opinion.

If your son has a real problem, that is a difficult fix, I think you'll know it in your gut.

If I had listened to therapists about all of my kids we would have been making several therapists even more capable of paying their mortgages and such. Plus Pharmaceutical companies.

All of my kids are doing just fine, learning to control their ADD, ADHD, and Aspergers just fine. To the point where most people don't even know they have a problem they are dealing with. All without meds, and withoutvtherapists, and without the stigma's.

I am not saying you shouldn't use therapists and meds, etc.... Just be darn sure that is the route you and your child need to go.

My wife and I have always had the ability to be home and give our kids the help and attention they have needed to be able to do it without therapists and meds. If your in a situation where you both have to work, etc... then you have to use your support system and let teh "professionals" do it.

If one of you can stay home I suggest whoever that is learn the therapy techniques and do them for your child, at home. Then the other learn what they need to know to do their part to help when they are home.

Yeah, its tougher. It would be nice to be a two income family, etc... But they are our kids.

 

[Quasqueton]

Funny, but I thought all two year olds had trouble forming the words right. Something to do with gross and fine anatomy at that age. It really isn't until the age of four that the equipment is the right shape.

The difference is forming the words incorrectly, but within the normal range of “incorrectness” (learning), and not being able to form the sounds at all, or outside the normal range of incorrectness (physically prevented because of a relatively very minor nervous system miswiring).

Examples:

Most 2-year-olds can say several body parts, even if it is with the “baby accent” – “no” [nose], “mouf” [mouth], “eah” [ear], “eye”, “chee” [cheek], “haeh” [hair]; a stranger can understand those words from the 2-year-old, especially in context. My son can’t say any of those except “eye”. He can point them all out when you ask him, but he can’t verbalize the words. If they come out at all, it is “uh” or “ah”.

Most 2-year-olds can say “pizza”. “pee-zaa.” My 2-year-old can say “pee” but can’t say “zaa” – it comes out “uh”. And he can’t say them close together, as one word – “pee-uh.” In fact, he won’t even try to say it without a lot of prompting, and then it comes out as “pee. uh.”

Even “yes” and “no”. My son says “uh huh” [yes], and just shakes head for no. What 2-year-old can’t say “no”?

It’s really an amazingly interesting disorder. Such a little thing, really, but it has such a big “blast radius” for effect for a child. The child looks, acts, and is perfectly normal in all ways, except he can’t say certain sounds. Fortunately, since this was recognized early, and he is getting proper “treatment” for it early, he will probably be functionally verbal by school age (though probably with an “accent”).

I was asking here to just see if anyone in my extended “world” had experienced this. I’m fascinated by it. Imagine if there were some sounds you [general use “you”, not anyone in particular] just could not verbalize. You can read them, hear them, and fully understand them, but just can’t make them come out of your perfectly healthy and normal mouth. Weird.

Quasqueton

 

[Quasqueton]

The only bit of advice I can give, is if you have difficulty believing the therapist, get another opinion.

It’s not just the therapist’s word (and her word will not be the last). My wife is a nurse by education, training, and pre-mom career (mostly pediatrics and maternity) -- she’s a stay at home mom, now, since our first child (now 6 years). And we have other medical professionals in the family. Though she wasn’t particularly knowledgeable of apraxia before the therapist mentioned it as a possibility, we have researched it since, and she is watching things from both a mom’s perspective and a medico’s. I’m also watching, but I’m a layman, at best.

I’m not terribly concerned about it, really more intrigued – that’s why I asked here. I see how well speech therapy is working, and I see how mentally and physically able he is, so I have faith (based on fact/evidence) that he’ll end up fine. Just will take more work/attention than normal in the beginning development.

Quasqueton