Hi, I have a 3.5 y/o ds who has Apraxia (and is somewhat delayed in motor developement as well) and can not speak. Apraxia is where he doesn't know how to work his mouth and his muscles in order to make a sound. If he doesn't think about it, he is sometimes able to make a sound or word, but if he thinks about it or is forced to do such, it doesn't happen. (this at least how I understood it.) I have heard of kids that learn to talk with this disorder and have heard of others that don't. Though I must say I am sure it could be much worse, he is healthy overall, but this has caused a lot of stress for our family. I also have a dd who is almost 2 and can speak very very well. (It's like having two 3 yr olds, because my dd is far advanced) Which also causes some problems because there are things my son can't do yet, that she can. Anyway, my ds was diagnosed prabably a year or so ago and has been in special play groups and has been getting therapy about once a week. I am excited to say at least he finally can say mama and dada now (we waited three years for him to say just these two precious words!) There are now just a very few words he can say that we know what hes saying. I am worried though again that he won't learn to speak. The therapist just informed me yesterday that she wants to see more progress in him. I try to work with him at home, but I also want him to be able to enjoy being a little kid with out all this work and everyone in his face trying to get him to say a sound. We taught my ds sign language and he is doing well with it, so at least we know what hes saying, but not many others do because not everyone knows sign. my ds is a very quiet and sensitive little boy, so this apraxia only makes him more timid, because he can't really communicate with just anyone. Does anyone else have a child with apraxia or know of any? I would love to hear someone elses story. We feel kinda alone, because no else really has heard of this or understands where we are coming from.

By Pamt on Saturday, December 6, 2003 - 07:53 pm:

Renee, I am a speech therapist with lots of experience with apraxia. I had my first apraxic child in therapy about 8 years ago and knew nothing about it. It was *mentioned* in college (I knew the definition--LOL), but I had clinically never treated anyone with apraxia. A mom came to me with her 6 y/o DD who could only say "mama" and "no." She was plenty intelligent, it was just the struggle of stringing the speech sounds together in the right order. You know what I mean, right? Well, clueless as I was I was determined to help this little girl and started reading everything I could about DAS (developmental apraxia of speech) and I went to a wonderful conference by Nancy Kaufman (http://www.kidspeech.com/index.html) who is well-known for her success in treating kids with apraxia. Poor Nancy ended up alone with me in the shuttle back to the airport where I picked her brain about what to do and asked her a billion questions. I ended up sending her a video of this little girl and she have me some excellent suggestions. You can request that service on her website, via your DS's speech therapist, but she charges for it now. Back when I met her, she did it for free. Now that I have gotten educated about apraxia, I have seen lots of children with it and helped them learned to speak. I have 3-4 kids with apraxia on my caseload right now and they are all speaking in sentences---some more intelligible than others.

To reassure you, I don't know of any apraxic child who has not improved to the point where they could carry on a conversation and be understood WITH THE PROPER THERAPY. Some many have some residual minor speech problems remaining, but they were understandable. Many speech therapists have little or no experience with apraxia (not their fault, just not taught much in school and is relatively rare), so they just plug along using traditional articulation therapy. Traditional therapy does not work!!! A child will make *some* progress with it, but it will be very slow.

First, I would strongly urge you to get more therapy for your son. He needs therapy at least 2x/week, if not 3x to see progress. Also, you need to make sure his therapist knows specifically what to do with apraxia. There are several different treatment methods--and I have kind of developed my own that works for me--but the thing is that it can't be treated like a child with delayed speech or run-of-the-mill articulation errors. You can feel free to email me to talk more at speech-chick@cox.net. Also, you might want to check out these resources that I have found to be beneficial: www.apraxia-kids.org, www. apraxia.org, and http://messageboards.ivillage.com/iv-ppspeechdel is a special board for parents of children with speech disorders and many of the parents there have kids diagnosed with apraxia.

Hope this helps!!

P.S., Yes, you have a good understanding of apraxia based on what you wrote. I always explain it to parents by saying it is like a tongue twister. You know what you want to say and have the physical ability to say it, your tongue just gets tangled in between retrieving the words from the brain to making them with the mouth. For a child with apraxia everything they attempt to say is like a tongue twister.

By Feona on Sunday, December 7, 2003 - 07:03 am:

I think he should be having speech therapy three times a week. My son is and he is speaking in full sentences (Okay he is confused with he and she). I really would be so mad at the school district. It is disgraceful they are being so cheap. I don't know how they are sleeping at night.


I think about going into mediation if they didn't give him the three sessions of speech therapy a week. I would ask them if this was your child would you deny him the three sessions of speech therapy?


Does the speech teacher think he needs more therapy? Why hasn't she called a meeting with the school district for more therapy?

By Mommmie on Friday, July 7, 2006 - 11:14 pm:

I've known a couple of kids with apraxia and both had therapy at least 3x a week for several years and both are doing very well now.

By Ginny~moderator on Saturday, July 22, 2006 - 01:11 am:

SPAM POST REMOVED 7/22/06. I get *really* annoyed when these spam posts show up in this area.