A Parents Guide to Apraxia - Speech & OT

 

A Parent’s Guide to Apraxia

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) can be a startling issue to confront at first. Everyone’s brain develops a muscle plan for the mouth, jaw, and tongue as they are learning to speak the language(s) they are raised around. In contrast to other speech impediments, the ability for the brain to perform this task isn’t weak but rather confused – there is an overall difficulty in coordinating the shapes and movements required to make the sounds. This can cause a distortion in how they pronounce vowels and consonants, distinct separations between syllables (within a single word or an entire sentence), or confusing similar sounding words, such as saying ‘batch’ instead of ‘patch’. This, however, is only a base line of examples, and can be confused with other language problems.

Symptoms to Look For

A lot of symptoms around CAS are present within other disorders, which can make it difficult to diagnose.  Articulation or phonological disorder is one where the child has trouble learning to make the sounds, but not any difficulty coordinating them. This creates a lot of substitutions in speech, such as ‘fum’ for ‘thumb’. To help distinguish CAS for other disorders there are a series of characteristics to look out for, such as trouble moving from one sound to another, distorting vowels, stressing the incorrect part of a word, using equal emphasis on all parts of the word, trouble mimicking simple words, and inconsistency within errors made in a word. To properly evaluate the condition, a series of tests will need to be conducted to identify a pattern of problems along with all their medical and family history to help determine any causes.

How to Discover the Issue

Unfortunately, the cause of CAS isn’t always easy to determine as doctors haven’t found a clear issue in the brain from case to case. Neurological injuries, such as stroke, infections, or trauma, are one cause, but CAS can also form from a genetic disorder, syndrome, or metabolic reasons. While the miscoordination within the brain may always be present, there is a slue of treatment options to help those with CAS work around the errors.

Speech therapy helps by focusing the child’s attention on the sound and how it feels to make the sound. A speech-language pathologist, like those of us here at Speech & Occupational Therapy of North Texas, can guide a child through paced learning, speaking practice, and sound and movement exercises before the practice is continued at home. This helps children impart their skills on a daily basis in real-life situations. Your physician can suggest other helpful tools for your child’s specific needs. Don’t give up hope! If you want more information, please contact us. We are glad to help!

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Occupational Therapy for Early Stimulation

 During the first three years of your child’s life, he or she is going to undergo constant stimulation from new experiences. This can be exhilarating for most children, and even stimulate their growth and improve the development of their brain. However, for other children, this constant stimulation can also be a little overwhelming. Instead of letting them get to where they withdraw, there are options. Occupational therapy allows your child to explore these stimulants in a safe, non-threatening way which can help them grow in many different ways.

Early Intervention and Early Stimulation Can Help Children Grow with Their Peers

The goal of these early intervention programs is to expose children to stimulants that will often be a part of their daily routine. It allows them to see things as normal when exposed to them the right way, which can help them overcome any feelings of discomfort when exposed to those same things down the line. Here are a few things you can do to help increase these stimulants at different ages, to help your child with proper development.

As infants, children need to be encouraged to explore. They should have tummy time and learn to crawl instead of going straight to walking whenever possible. They should also be given opportunities to explore tactile items, like crayons and chalk.

Toddlers have slightly larger needs in that they are larger children. They should be learning to converse with those around them, with the goal of learning to use full sentences. The more they can describe what they want or need in detail, the better. Writing, copying, and drawing should be a regular part of their routine. These fine motor skills are very important as children develop.

Large motor skills also need some work during this time. Giving your child the ability to maneuver an obstacle course can help them here. Consider things to climb over, under, or through, as well as having areas to run around or tiptoe across gives them multiple things to do. You can also incorporate kicking, using a baseball bat, and jumping into this course.

Role-playing and playing pretend is also a way to help increase early stimulation. Let your child pretend to be what he or she wants to be. Allow them to dress up, pretend to cook, care for others to develop empathy, and anything they can safely imagine. This helps develop the brain and allows them to safely explore their emotions.

If you are looking for other ways of helping with early stimulation in your child’s life, give our office a call. We would love to give you some extra ideas to help your child learn to love learning.