Friday, April 13, 2012

Dirty Little Word

Apraxia. When she said it, I already knew what it meant, and while it's not an official diagnosis yet, it scares me. Let's back up for a minute...

Max started speech therapy this week. He was finally starting to babble and make some sounds after the surgery to place tubes in his ears, and we were hoping to get those verbal skills going. His gross motor (big muscle) stuff is going well, fine motor (fingertips and pointing) are slower to progress. Plus, he still only eats crunchy and cold stuff. Nothing warm, nothing that requires as spoon, we have added chewy fruit bites to the mix, but that's it.

Apraxia is this:

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder. Children with CAS have problems saying sounds, syllables, and words. This is not because of muscle weakness or paralysis. The brain has problems planning to move the body parts (e.g., lips, jaw, tongue) needed for speech. The child knows what he or she wants to say, but his/her brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say those words.

What are some signs or symptoms of childhood apraxia of speech?

Not all children with CAS are the same. All of the signs and symptoms listed below may not be present in every child. It is important to have your child evaluated by a speech-language pathologist (SLP) who has knowledge of CAS to rule out other causes of speech problems. General things to look for include the following:

A Very Young Child

  • Does not coo or babble as an infant
  • First words are late, and they may be missing sounds
  • Only a few different consonant and vowel sounds
  • Problems combining sounds; may show long pauses between sounds
  • Simplifies words by replacing difficult sounds with easier ones or by deleting difficult sounds (although all children do this, the child with apraxia of speech does so more often)
  • May have problems eating

So the speech therapist noticed that Max is showing some of the indicators of this. Too early to diagnose, but something we need to work on, be aware of and be prepared for if things don't improve. I think it scares us most, because of the brain bleed he had a birth. It resolved, but we've always known that there could be developmental problems that would come along later, Dyslexia, Autism, and Apraxia are on that list.

We're making flash cards for all the things Max loves and working with him on the sounds he needs to make. We are ramping up the feeding therapy in hopes of stimulating his mouth to build the tongue, cheek and jaw muscles. We are looking at an Apraxia program at a local special needs school which he could start as early as next fall. We are also considering what this could mean for him at preschool and school age, and whether we might need to re-locate at some point, for better educational options for him.

It's all uncertain right now, and the most disappointing part of this, is that we really want him to speak. We've waited 2 years to hear him say "I love you" and that thought of that not happening is well, heart-breaking. But we're not giving up! Max has done LOTS of things that doctors thought he would never do. He just seems to do things on his own schedule, and with LOTS of help. So we're kicking it into full gear around here, doing our part to help him as much as possible. We'd like to ask that you do your part too... prayers for him and his therapists and us and we work to help him reach his full potential would be so appreciated.

We know and trust that God has a plan for Max. If that plan doesn't include normal speech patterns then that's okay, we'll take that sweet smile anyday!! But, here's hoping he'll be talking my ear off someday!




Sunday, April 1, 2012

Still photos from the solo dance...

I have most of the stills on Facebook... but these are a few from the stage photographer. She had a fit that I didn't order the one of her leap!!! So I've asked a friend to pick up a copy of that one today. These were our faves!