Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Posted by Lee on . Filed under: Parenting. 13 comments.

I know a lot of people stress out about being a parent, and they even use that as an excuse to not have children. I will admit that being a parent is the most challenging thing I have ever done, but I have never particularly stressed out about being a parent. It is true, being a parent can be hard sometimes but being a parent is not hard because of the things I will do. It is hard because we all want the best for our children and when they suffer or something is wrong with them we suffer with them.

My three year old daughter has recently been diagnosed with childhood apraxia of speech and it has been a trying thing to cope with. I want the best for my daughter and there are many unknowns about apraxia. We don’t know if she will be able to ever talk normally, will she be teased at school, will she fit in?

Searching the Internet for information on apraxia of speech is not particularly helpful. Many of the websites out there that talk about childhood apraxia tell stories of kids that have never learned how to talk normally, have been teased for much off their time at school and have run up huge speech therapy bills trying to help their children.

Those are not the answers and stories I want to hear about what might be the future for my daughter. Fortunately those are not the only stories I have heard, and the speech therapist and other people that I have meet whose kids have had apraxia have been encouraging. My daughter also has several things going for her. She is smart, she has some sounds and with practice is able to learn more. She is also one of the most stubborn people I have ever meet. When she puts her mind to do something there is nothing that will stop her.

Only time will tell if my daughter will be able to learn to speak properly, until then we practice, practice and practice. We are hopeful that we might be able to get her into a special program that will help her get as many hours as possible of speech therapy and practice as we can. The progress she has made already made is hopeful. Every week there are new sounds and words she is trying so hard to make and we encourage her to say them as much as we can. I know it is a long road ahead to help her.

I am sure I will talk more about this at some point, but if your child has apraxia of speech leave a comment and let me know what your experience has been for you and your child.

Comments

  1. Tanya says:
    January 25, 2010 at 10:13 am

    My son is 5 and this is his third year in preschool. He’s had speech since two and his story at the moment is not great… yet. He will be starting Kindergarten next year and I’m still in debate about to have him go or homeschool. He still can’t talk where anyone can understand him. Which as started problems about him learning in preschool. (His preschool is for “special” kids and he’s still having issues at the moment.) I’ve also researched but all I find are stories on kids who had speech and got better. He’s had a few SLPs and still has so many speech issues with nobody being able to understand him that I wish I could find more stories on what parents did when speech hadn’t worked thus far at his age. All I see is that the kid got speech and now he/she can talk almost normal. :(

    Reply
  2. Tammy says:
    March 8, 2010 at 4:48 pm

    my daughter is 3 years old and has been seeing a SLP for about a year. but this through a government program so she is only seen once every two weeks for 3 months then she has 3 month off. It is extremly slow progress but we can’t afford a private SLP and that kills me. I have similar feelings-my daughter will be in preschool next year and how will she handel it? how will the other kids treat her? I want to protect her from any of the negativity she might experience. at the same time my daughter is very bright and super stubborn so i know she will be able to deal and understand and stand up for herself, i just wish she didn’t have too at such a youg age. it makes me feel helpless i can’t make her talk, i can’t always protect her all i can do is practice everyday, be there for her and never stop believing in her. that’s the key – beleiving and supporting.

    Reply
    • Lee says:
      March 15, 2010 at 12:21 pm

      It is tough. We keep practising and practising. My daughter is 4 now and she is talking in sentences. Some we understand some, not so much. The longer the sentence the harder it is for us to hear the individual words. But there are signs of hope. She is getting more and more sounds. Back sounds like K and G are hard, but we do hear them occasionally.

      Slow but sure wins the race I guess.

      Reply
  3. Kati says:
    March 16, 2010 at 11:17 pm

    Hi Lee…

    You wrote on my wall about my son who has Apraxia. He will be 4 in May and does speak quite well actually especially since he started in August… He misses the K’s and G’s so kitty cat is titty tat, grandma is dama… but amazing to here your baby speak! Did she speak like J did? (ahhahhhahha) or was it silent?

    nice to meet you!

    Reply
    • Lee says:
      March 17, 2010 at 2:10 pm

      Hi Kati. Sorry about the double post on your site. Blogger gave me some error when I submitted it the first time so I did it a second.

      My daughter has trouble with the back sounds as well. K and G are hard, but we do hear the odd G from her these days. We are starting to understand her more. She just started trying to say her name. Exciting for us to hear her try.

      Reply
  4. Robin says:
    April 7, 2010 at 3:42 am

    My son Ewan was diagnosed a year ago when he was 3. He has improved alot during this past year with the increased speech therapy (2-3 times per week) and the knowledge that we have picked up about how to support him. I found alot of information at the CASANA website Apraxia kids. I also started a local parent support group here in Ottawa, Ontario Canada which has been really helpful as well.

    Reply
  5. Cheryl says:
    May 7, 2010 at 2:04 am

    My son Keaton also has been diagnosed. He is 3 and his brother is 5 (who spoke sentences at 16 months)!!! Trying to balance everyday life, working full time and controlling the 2 boys brotherly fighting is a challenge. He has been seeing a gov. SLP and we are now starting private SLP. It is refreshing to read other parents concerns. I am feeling pressure as he starts school in Sept and am worried about this confidence. Any tips or referrals would be appreciated, We live in Halton.

    Reply
  6. Clara says:
    July 1, 2010 at 12:36 pm

    I am 14 and was dianosed when I was 4. I had over 20 sounds missing and was told it would tke at least to grade 12 and I’d never sound normal. We live 2 hours away from my therapist, so I missed a year of school to work on my speech. For a ling time we had to go weekly, but slowly it got more spaced. The best thing that happen to me was I got a cat of me very own. This was something the therapist told us to do. This helped so much because I tolked to him and wasn’t judged. I believe my cat is why I have progressed so quickly. I am now in grade 9 and at the top of my class. The thing about apraxia kids is that we never give up. Yes, I was teased, I couldn’t spell or say my name, and I had to work harder than all the other kids. But all this taught me to never give up and become who I am today.

    Reply
    • Lee says:
      July 1, 2010 at 6:42 pm

      @Clara Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Glad to hear you are doing well. I hope my daughter can progress well. She is strong willed and she does work hard. We have cats but she rarely talks to them. She does play with her Barbie’s regularly and has conversations with them. It is really fun to watch when she does it. She has also started singing more lately. Not always clear but it does seem to be easier for her. We keep working and hoping she can overcome this challenge.

      Reply
  7. Clara says:
    July 9, 2010 at 9:19 am

    singing is easier because and comes from a different side of the brain tha talking.

    Reply
  8. Anne says:
    October 26, 2010 at 6:16 pm

    Clara’s comments are so inspiring and so remind me of our little boy, who is now 3 and also struggling with apraxia of speech. He too is unbelievably stubborn (or committed, depending on how you see it), which I think is a good trait for what he has to overcome. Our SLP has been a huge help. The hard part is actually doing all of the practice. We try and get at least 50% of the homework done between meetings but, with both parents working, that’s a tall order. Our son *is* making progress, though. One thing that has really helped him is music. He likes to sing songs and, while a lot of the words are his own make-up words, a few actually come out as real words. I build on this by singing along with him so that he figures out slowly how to add in the correct sounds. I notice that he watches my mouth very closely when we do this. So, the key is to go slow and build on what he already knows and is comfortable with. I agree with the other parents here – it’s not easy. We all want our kids to be happy. But there *is* hope and, truth be told, my son *is* happy – just not terribly verbal at the moment. As my own mother would say, “give it time and love”. Good luck to the other parents out there. :-)

    Reply
  9. Amy says:
    December 1, 2011 at 9:35 am

    I sit here and cry as I read how well other’s kids with apraxia are starting to talk. I’ve learned from 2 different SLPs that they believe my 3.5 year old son has apraxia of speech. Unfortunately, he does not have enough words yet to get a proper diagnosis. He has been seeing a speech therapist since he was 19 months old. He only has 3 words that he uses independently, “mama, uh-oh, and me” (which comes out as EEEEE) And he has only started using those words a few month ago. He will try to copy “More” and “dada” after you say it to him first. Most all the time, he just grunts. As hard as he tries, it is extremely difficult for him to try to copy sounds we try to do with him. He goes to a special needs preschool through the school district where his speech therapist has been using therapy to help his apraxia. Unfortunately, it’s only 2 times a week and he only has one on one time with the therapist a for about 20 minutes during that time.

    I’m very discouraged. Lucky for me, my husband is much more optimistic than I am and he works very hard with our son. He is so certain our son will talk one day and does not worry about him nearly as much as I do. I only pray my husbands right.

    I would love for anyone with any insight or advice to contact me. I’m really struggling with this.

    Reply
    • Lee says:
      December 1, 2011 at 7:55 pm

      Hang in there Amy! It gets better but I will not lie to you it takes a lot of work and time.

      My daughter started speech therapy when she was 3 and she turns 6 tomorrow. When we started we only had a few sounds and words. Perhaps a few more than your son but not many. We learned some simple sign language to get by. Simple things like eat, drink, etc. Just to lower the frustration level for all of us. She picked it up fast from the DVD’s we borrowed from the library.

      Now after three years she has a much larger vocabulary but we go for weeks / months sometimes it seems with little or no improvement, then she seems to take a jump and learns a new sound. Last spring she had a break through and learned a lot of new sounds but she has leveled off since then again.

      It takes time and hard work and I know there were/are times when it is hard to keep going. Some days we just do a little speech work because that is all we can handle other days we go for longer than usual but whatever work you can get in will help.

      Reply

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