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puppetmakerI can remember when we got the diagnoses after a bunch of testing including hearing and motor skills. My husband told me that I didn’t do anything wrong but I still blamed myself even though I couldn’t think of something I could have done. Caroline was ahead of the curve on so many things but the one thing she had trouble doing was communicating verbally. Her word count was minimal for a child her age and her speech was riddled with errors that didn’t occur all the time but just enough that it was a bit troublesome. Her big sister was in speech therapy for a weak tongue, which made her sound much younger than she was. The therapist knew Caroline because she traveled with her sister a lot and she was the one that suspected she knew what was going on and recommended all the tests. Caroline had developmental apraxia.
Developmental apraxia is a condition where the brain doesn’t always connect with the mouth. It’s not that the child is lazy or that they don’t know the word they can’t say, rather their brain can’t make the mouth form the words correctly. It can be corrected but it takes a lot of therapy and repetition as the brain and the mouth connect. The younger you can start the therapy, the better for the child since the brain is more malleable then and connections can be relearned.
Caroline could communicate very well but it was not verbally. She had a set of gestures that she used to convey what she wanted that I could translate very easily but then I was around her all the time. I could understand Caroline speak because my brain would put in the words and sounds that were missing. Her motor skills, both gross and fine, were off the chart. She was tall for her age and could do things that other kids were just starting to do. She just didn’t talk much. My mother noticed this when we visited them during the summer. She has two granddaughters. Caroline is the younger and the other is 6 weeks older than her. My mother had spent time with both and commented that Caroline was talking a lot less than her cousin. This coupled with a comments from Caroline’s preschool teacher and some other people led us to consult with the speech therapist.
Caroline went to speech therapy for a couple of years and worked very hard at improving her speech. She likes pleasing people so she worked hard with her therapist. She stopped jumping if you hugged her from behind. She was fine if she could see you but she didn’t like being touched or cuddled if she didn’t see it coming. Her brain seem to sort out the disconnect and reconnected with her mouth. She became less sensitive to the world around her which was good since she had a tendency to shut down when the world became too much. The therapist described it as that Caroline didn’t have a filter that allowed her to sort out all that she was feeling with her 5 senses so she was constantly overwhelmed with all the information her brain was getting.
It took a long time but she had done wonderfully. Her teachers don’t know that she was diagnosed with apraxia. They don’t see any flagrant signs of it. Caroline communicates with her teachers and the world around her with an ease that others envy. Her vocabulary is rather extensive and she can tell you what the words she uses mean. She may not be able to spell them, but she can define them. She tells amazing stories. She loves to give and receive hugs. She communicates with the world in a way that I didn’t think possible after we knew what was wrong. Sometimes when she is tired or distracted, little things creep back into her speech or behavior but over all, unless I told you, you would never know that she use to fail to communicate
Developmental apraxia is a condition where the brain doesn’t always connect with the mouth. It’s not that the child is lazy or that they don’t know the word they can’t say, rather their brain can’t make the mouth form the words correctly. It can be corrected but it takes a lot of therapy and repetition as the brain and the mouth connect. The younger you can start the therapy, the better for the child since the brain is more malleable then and connections can be relearned.
Caroline could communicate very well but it was not verbally. She had a set of gestures that she used to convey what she wanted that I could translate very easily but then I was around her all the time. I could understand Caroline speak because my brain would put in the words and sounds that were missing. Her motor skills, both gross and fine, were off the chart. She was tall for her age and could do things that other kids were just starting to do. She just didn’t talk much. My mother noticed this when we visited them during the summer. She has two granddaughters. Caroline is the younger and the other is 6 weeks older than her. My mother had spent time with both and commented that Caroline was talking a lot less than her cousin. This coupled with a comments from Caroline’s preschool teacher and some other people led us to consult with the speech therapist.
Caroline went to speech therapy for a couple of years and worked very hard at improving her speech. She likes pleasing people so she worked hard with her therapist. She stopped jumping if you hugged her from behind. She was fine if she could see you but she didn’t like being touched or cuddled if she didn’t see it coming. Her brain seem to sort out the disconnect and reconnected with her mouth. She became less sensitive to the world around her which was good since she had a tendency to shut down when the world became too much. The therapist described it as that Caroline didn’t have a filter that allowed her to sort out all that she was feeling with her 5 senses so she was constantly overwhelmed with all the information her brain was getting.
It took a long time but she had done wonderfully. Her teachers don’t know that she was diagnosed with apraxia. They don’t see any flagrant signs of it. Caroline communicates with her teachers and the world around her with an ease that others envy. Her vocabulary is rather extensive and she can tell you what the words she uses mean. She may not be able to spell them, but she can define them. She tells amazing stories. She loves to give and receive hugs. She communicates with the world in a way that I didn’t think possible after we knew what was wrong. Sometimes when she is tired or distracted, little things creep back into her speech or behavior but over all, unless I told you, you would never know that she use to fail to communicate
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Date: 2010-02-24 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 05:59 pm (UTC)Having had speech therapy myself, I can relate (although my speech issues were physical and related to jaw and teeth placement so I climbed a different hill than Caroline).
I'm glad we both made it to the top.
*hug*
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Date: 2010-02-24 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-24 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-25 12:49 am (UTC)My sister had some speech impediments when she was younger, but she was able to resolve them with speech therapy.
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Date: 2010-02-25 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-25 03:01 am (UTC)I'm glad I'm not the only mom facing this.
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Date: 2010-02-25 04:26 am (UTC)reminds me of my nephew in that he struggled and now shines so much!
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Date: 2010-02-25 09:41 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2010-02-26 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 04:48 am (UTC)Thanks!
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Date: 2010-02-27 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-27 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-12 02:02 am (UTC)N.