Apraxia...Need some positive stories.My DS is 21 months now and has made a lot of wonderful progress over the past 6 months. I feel good about everything except he's been diagnosed with apraxia. Because he's not making many sounds at all, they can't say how severe it is, but that he definitely has it. I HATE THIS. The autism is challenging enough for him, but it's like throwing gasoline on the fire when I hear that he'll now struggle with this speech disorder. He WANTS to communicate. He has about 40 signs now and doesn't communicate solely for wants and needs. He loves to comment, narrate, label with words using his signs. He's never in his own little world and has perfect clarity. His receptive skills are amazing. But he can't talk. And now he knows it. I see him struggle with making the sounds and it breaks my heart. I would love for anyone out there to share their experiences with me about apraxia. Will he always sound like he's deaf if he even talks at all? Will he retreat entirely as he ages because he can't communicate verbally? I've read a lot about it, but now I need real life info. What's this deal with this awful thing? Thanks a lot, K My experience is that Apraxia almost always completely resolves by the time the child is 4 years old. My daughter had a secondary apraxia diagnosis when she was about your son's age, and from the kids I've seen, it's at its most severe at the ages of 1 and 2, and then quickly clears up in the preschool years. Fish oil is very good for apraxia. My son doesn't have apraxia, but he has a classmate who was dx'd with severe apraxia. The other boy is a year younger but this is his 2nd year in class with my son. (It was K/1 class last year and a 1/2 this year.) Anyway, at the beginning of last year when I met this boy he was completely unintelligible except for a word here and there. Just last weekend he came to my boys' birthday party and wow, what a dramatic difference. His speech still isn't crystal clear, and he can be a little hard to understand at times if he speaks quickly and isn't looking at me, but I have no trouble carrying on a conversation with him now. It's a pretty dramatic improvement over the past 18 months. My DS (6) has apraxia and has progressed in the last few years. His articulation is still very poor but he can put up to 4-5 words together. Also, like your ds his receptive skills are excellent. We're in the process of trying to get a voice output device for him. At your son's age he is probably too young for one. Plus, it seems like children progress alot from about 2-5. Keep on working with him!!! i no a child who is 6 still has litte words with aprixa .maybe she can start learning some sign We have many professionals who fell that our dd possibly has apraxia. She is now 3.6 yo. She has many words, but a lot of them don't sound like the real word. I do have to say however, that she has come so far from when she was 2. A lot of progress can happen in a year. Fish oils are excellent, and can help, but it is a process for the brain to make all the right connections, and takes times. There is hope, I know my dd is on her way to full communication. Get all the early intervention you can. Since my dd turned 3 and entered the school system, she has grown tremendously!My son was diagnosed with Apraxia (both oral and verbal) when he was young. He had 8 word approximations at 2 and a half years old and we worried that he would never talk. Flash forward to now - he is 12 years old and NEVER STOPS TALKING Good luck, and I bet he'll be talking in no time. Thanks, Tiffany |
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. He does still have some speech issues, but they are associated with "cluttering" which is related to processing difficulties and the very rapid rate at which he speaks.