Oral apraxia

Post Reply New Topic

My son just turned 3 and has only a few words he can consistently speak. He will try to repeat a word, and it comes out as a completely different sound than he intended to make. Example: the word Mermaid will be "NahNah" when he tries to pronounce it. His therapist all agree it is most likely oral apraxia, however, in Colorado he cannot get that official diagnosis until the age of 5. He has been diagnosed with autism, but I suspect he has either asperger's or PDD-NOS. I believe his speech delay is due to his oral apraxia which makes determining where he is on the spectrum difficult. He's extremely smart, and cognitively equal to his NT peers. He uses pecs and sign along with his limited vocabulary to communicate. My question is this. Has anyone on this site had delayed speech as a child and still received an asperger diagnosis later in life? If you had delayed speech, what techniques best helped you to find your voice? I'm a NT mother, and I do my best to navigate my AS sons miraculously unique and wonderful brain. He is amazing in every way, I just aim to equip him with all the tools necessary to further his speech development. Any help is greatly appreciated:)

I didn't have delay, but regarding apraxia you should use all of this (signs, PECS), and try to find ReST/mCVC or PROMPT therapist because those are therapies which work the best for childhood apraxia of speech, and since apraxia is purely motor speech disorder your son can get DX of Aspergers because criteria for 'speech delay' doesn't mean pure motor aspect (speech )but language function (expressive or receptive language skills) which are not imapaired in apraxia... although he might not get proper DX till he's 5, they should provide him therapy ....since apraxia is severe speech impairment and early intervention is very very important... I can send you basic reccomendations for apraxia support therapy at home, but finding SLP who is specialized in apraxia treatment is your best option (saying this as a sister of youngster with apraxia of speech and as SLP student)... + CAS is somewhat often in ASD and other neurodevelopmental disorders (intellectual disability or cerebral palsy), him being on the spectrum shouldn't be a problem to the SLP

My son didn't talk much at all until he was three, and then no one but me and his sister could understand, because only we knew which sounds meant what. Very much like you describe your son's speech. My son was tested and found to be higher than his age group in intelligence, so, an IeP was written up,and he was put into a gentle speech therapy and pre-school program from age 3 until 5. The gentle, non-stressful approach which his teachers had was excellent. otherwise, he wouldn't have agreed to attend at all. It helped immensely, although at 5 he went into stuttering which continues to this day, 7 years later. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the input. It's so hard to test a non verbal kiddo and show off all his skills. It doesn't help that he is super distracted and in exploration mode when he is in a new environment- sigh. At least me and his team of therapist know his capabilities:)

I don't know if this will help, but...

I've always had trouble coordinating some movements, but I've found some things that seem to make it slowly better. It may have been worse with things that I couldn't see, and the mouth and vocal hardware are prime examples of that (think about the muscles involved in flossing...)

Better self care seems to help. Getting some sleep, or removing things that hurt. You really need tactile information (touch-sense) to coordinate things inside of you, and my balance, typing, etc., seem to improve/regress in sync with speech.

I could imagine that even something like an early ear infection (of which two of my cousins had many) could start a vicious cycle of discomfort->poor self care->more discomfort->shutting out physical feeling.