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Apraxia. Please help
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amother
Ecru


 

Post Wed, Oct 10 2018, 4:07 pm
My child was just diagnosed with apraxia. Im at a loss. Was told to get her a spch therapist that specializes and does strictly prompt.
Any leads to top therapist? In brklyn area.
What can I expect for the road ahead of us? Any other info I need to know
Chizzuk would be great to.
Thanks so much!
An overwhelmed mom
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amother
Khaki


 

Post Wed, Oct 10 2018, 7:05 pm
Hi,
I am a speech therapist. It is UNTRUE that apraxia "requires" a prompt-trained therapist. Prompt is a commercial method that uses tactile prompts, meaning that the therapist touches the child's face to cue for production of sounds. Prompt also uses a motor planning based approach. However, many therapists who have not taken the expensive, difficult to find prompt training, have success with apraxia. Many of them use tactile cues. Also, there are other commercial methods for treating apraxia, such as the Kaufman method. Find a.therapist who is experienced and comfortable with apraxia, regardless of her approach. Also, realizr that diagnosing apraxia is a gray area. Some therapists will label any difficult to treat child as apraxic. The label is less helpful than a careful assessment of the underlying factors in your child's speech -- is it muscle based, structural, motor planning, the result of poor auditory discrimination, or some combination of the above.
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amother
Floralwhite


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 12:06 am
what is apraxia?
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cuties' mom




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 4:44 am
amother wrote:
what is apraxia?


Apraxia is when the brain isn't communicating with some of the muscles so a person wants to do something but can't get muscles to obey. Verbal apraxia is when it's the speech muscles that are affected; oral apraxia is all the mouth muscles (meaning that eating is also hard); motor apraxia is about movement; and global apraxia is all of the above.

Ds has global apraxia. In early intervention, his speech therapists used the Kaufman method. He started talking close to his 3rd birthday.
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cuties' mom




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 4:50 am
amother wrote:
My child was just diagnosed with apraxia. Im at a loss. Was told to get her a spch therapist that specializes and does strictly prompt.
Any leads to top therapist? In brklyn area.
What can I expect for the road ahead of us? Any other info I need to know
Chizzuk would be great to.
Thanks so much!
An overwhelmed mom


My 7th grader has global apraxia. He started getting therapy when he was 15 months old. At the time, he couldn't bite, chew, or swallow food, had no consonant sounds, couldn't hold up his head when lying on his stomach, couldn't bear weight on his feet, and was pretty much stuck in whatever position I put him in. He learned to eat at 19 months, to crawl at 22 months, walk at 24 months, and talk at 33 months. He went to a special preschool since he wasn't really talking much yet and had lots of trouble with stairs. After that, he went to regular ed yeshiva. He is in 7th grade now and is considered a top student. He does well academically, likes to read, has friends, and loves sports. The beginning years could be overwhelming until you get all therapists to work well with you and your kid, but once your child learns to do something, he has that skill forever.
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amother
Smokey


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 5:00 am
Just making you aware that not all speech therapist are trained in apraxia but they won’t always tell you that
Although my ds has been diagnosed with apraxia at age 2 and has been receiving speech therapy for over 4 years, all the therapists weren’t trained in dealing with apraxia so his speech is still not good.
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amother
Ecru


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 5:00 am
Op here sorry for not specifying she has apraxia of speech.
Thanks for responses. If anyone has specific in this area would appreciate it.
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amother
Ecru


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 5:07 am
amother wrote:
Just making you aware that not all speech therapist are trained in apraxia but they won’t always tell you that
Although my ds has been diagnosed with apraxia at age 2 and has been receiving speech therapy for over 4 years, all the therapists weren’t trained in dealing with apraxia so his speech is still not good.


Wow so you still didnt find the proper therapist?
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amother
Ecru


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 5:08 am
Also how do you deal with the constant tantrums because they cant Express their needs? How do you stay calm?
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amother
Smokey


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 5:26 am
amother wrote:
Wow so you still didnt find the proper therapist?


At this point I realized that the speech therapists who are trained in apraxia are not excepting my insurance. Right now I’m not able to pay private so after all these years I decided to take a break and see what happens. Sometimes as they mature they improve on their own. I’m hoping for that. Just this morning I corrected him when he said “wook” instead of “look “.
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amother
Pink


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 5:30 am
My dd was barely speaking at 2.5, and I took her to a speech therapist who used the Kaufman method with great success. Several years later I had her evaluated by a neurolinguist, who told us that my dd must have had apraxia of speech, but since she got effective therapy at a young age, the pathways in the brain were remodeled and she has only slight residual signs of apraxia (difficulty pronouncing some 3 and 4-syllabic words properly). Unfortunately my dd has other language/learning issues, but BH her speech is beautiful today!

In terms of expressing their needs, the therapist my daughter went to also used picture cards at the beginning (I can't remember what they were called) so my daughter could point at pictures what she wanted. Maybe something like that can be helpful in decreasing your child's tantrums.

Find experts in your area who can advise you on where to go for appropriate therapy--which could be PROMPT, Kaufman, or maybe something else. Hatzlacha!
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amother
Taupe


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 5:39 am
My DD has childhood apraxia of speech it's been a super long road. It requires really intense frequent speech therapy. And a lot of patient on the parents end. Over the years we had a few different therapist mostly due to switching from EI to preschool to school age. The most important is that the therapist is willing to try different methods and learn about it. We are very lucky we it was discovered really early and was able to really to do a lot when she was still little I called EI at 8m Bec she was not rolling yet and the evaluator looked at me and says she needs speech. she has very low oral tone and had feeding issues we did feeding therapy also. which really helps because they work on strengthening the jaw and mouth movements which is usually a big problem with kids with apraxia. I would say at this point she has a lot of distortions with her sounds and it kind of sounds like she has an accent but you could understand her for the most part. It gets frustrating because when prompted a lot of time these children are able to make the sounds and as soon as they go back to regular talking or even reading and they are working hard and not fully concentrating that's when their speech tends to revert back to the distortions. Start with taking it one step at a time, start speech therapy practice at home use a lot of modeling word repeat back what your child is saying to you if they start really getting fustrated I would drop it and try to move on to the next thing maybe not the best advice but I found it was sometimes the best way to avoid her getting too overwhelmed and upset . Feel free at ask me any questions
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tweety1




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 6:04 am
amother wrote:
Just making you aware that not all speech therapist are trained in apraxia but they won’t always tell you that
Although my ds has been diagnosed with apraxia at age 2 and has been receiving speech therapy for over 4 years, all the therapists weren’t trained in dealing with apraxia so his speech is still not good.

This this this! My son was the same. Bh is bar mitzvah already and you would never believe he had severe apraxia of speech. For abt 3 yrs from age 3-6 he had a trained apraxia of speech therapist. I had it covered through not ei but the next level forgot what it's called. Pls do whatever you can to get a trained therapist. It's the key to success
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amother
Ecru


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 10:52 am
tweety1 wrote:
This this this! My son was the same. Bh is bar mitzvah already and you would never believe he had severe apraxia of speech. For abt 3 yrs from age 3-6 he had a trained apraxia of speech therapist. I had it covered through not ei but the next level forgot what it's called. Pls do whatever you can to get a trained therapist. It's the key to success


Can you give me therapist name?
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amother
Ecru


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 10:55 am
Just curious what is the kaufman method?
So just to clarify shes been receiving spch for abt a year now and at this point they said its apraxia.( im actually going to get a second opinion) And was told to find a therapist that does prompt.

Thanks for all the responses its really helpful and to feel like im not alone.
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amother
Purple


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 11:17 am
amother wrote:
Also how do you deal with the constant tantrums because they cant Express their needs? How do you stay calm?


Could be that the mood regulation as well as the apraxia are both impacted by lack of omega 3 fatty acids... the brain needs good fat to function well especially in these areas (speech/language, mood). Does your child get enough good fat in his diet? If he doesn’t, get an omega 3 or fish oil supplement. Can’t hurt. This is not instead of speech therapy.. but if his brain is “starving” so to speak, this could help give his brain the resources it needs to start healing and respond better to speech therapy too.
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amother
Pink


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 11:58 am
Simple lay person explanation of Kaufman method: They use cards with pictures of items, starting with simpler words (I think one syllable with one consonant one vowel sound, eg. tie) and teach the children to say those simple words. Then build up to longer words, e.g. --consonant-vowel-consonant (e.g. cat) and eventually two syllable words--combining two shorter words, etc. The therapist who worked with my dd actually trained with Dr. Kaufman who developed the method and it worked incredibly for my dd.
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amother
Pink


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 12:01 pm
Oh, and I forgot to mention that prior to going to the speech therapist who used the Kaufman method my dd had several months of "typical" early intervention speech therapy, playing with toys etc and made no progress at all.
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amother
Pink


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 12:04 pm
I'll never forget how, after about 5 months of the Kaufman therapy (I think just once a week, but maybe twice), we taught my then 3-yr-old dd to ask the 4 questions at the seder: Why matzah? why marror? why dip? why pillow? It was a tremendous accomplishment for her!
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amother
Slateblue


 

Post Thu, Oct 11 2018, 12:07 pm
Op, u said u are in Brooklyn so why can't u call agencies to see if they have speech therapists trained in apraxia. She should continue with the regular speech therapist now until u find one but if she's diagnosed with apraxia, then the early intervention agency should be able to ask for speech for 4 or 5 times a week(request an increase in weekly visits unless u already have everyday).

Also, u can tell the agency to evaluate her for special instruction(which is called setts wen they are older) bec maybe shell be eligible to get a specific instruction teacher come to ur home and its paid for by early intervention. Its good for her to get as much therapy as possible.

My child has apraxia too but I couldn't find a therapist trained in apraxia, so I used a regular therapist. I was able to get my child a lot of different services through early intervention paid for by NYC, so what do u mean that u have to do private pay?
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