Childhood Apraxia

J.,

One of my sons also has verbal apraxia. He started speech therapy at 18-19 months (he's now 7). We're in Plano. Since your son is now 4, he could do speech therapy through your school system. If you are open to alternative treatments though, let me suggest Integrative Pediatric Therapy (www.integrativepediatric.com). My son was in speech therpy for a couple of years and by 3 1/2 only had a dozen words. One summer, I decided to enroll him at the Callier Center in Richardson for speach and to look for other help. I decided to give Sally Fryer's group a try for a few months. We had him tested there and did twice a week PT/OT and once a week craniosacral therapy. At the end of the summer, his entire speech was in and we were only working on articulation. When he returned to school (he was going to the PreK communication class at Beaty in PISD), his speech teachers couldn't believe it. It was truly amazing!!! He's now 7 and goes to speech twice a week at school for some articulation. His issues are mostly when he's in conversation. Family and friends are amazed at how well he speaks.

I wish you the best of luck. He will pull through this with patience and help. If you want to talk more, please feel free to email me at ____@____.com.

K.

J., my daughter Hannah is almost 2 1/2 (much younger in contrast to Toby), but she has verbal apraxia and we live in McKinney. I could go into all the details of our experiences (diagnosis, how we communicate, what therapies we use, her symptoms, all the endless hours of research I've done on apraxia...) but how about we wait on that --- Let me know if you want to talk, even though our kids' ages are almost 2 years apart.

I personally would LOVE to talk to another mom whose kid has apraxia. It's such an uncommon diagnosis, and I've found about 3 bulletin board sites online that offer great access to other parents, but I'd really like to be able to talk IN PERSON to someone in the area and not be on the Internet all the time, reading posts.

We can exchange emails if you're interested...

Gabby

My 9 year old son has severe verbal apraxia. He also has Down Syndrome. He uses some sign language and just got a Dynavox V to help him communicate.

Personally, I would start private speech therapy and get speech therapy through the school district. There is a place called East Side Speech that is in Plano. They are really good and seem to understand apraxia.

L.

Hi J.,
There is a good website www.apraxia-kids.org. I don't know if they have support groups but it is a great source of information. I am a speech pathologist in North Dallas and see many kids with apraxia. It is more common than you think and most kids do quite well with the right therapy.
Good luck.
J.
www.speechtherapy4kids.com