Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Anyone know anything?

Tunakid #3 may have it. He has an early interventionist and a speech therapist coming a few times, but TunaWife has a hard time dealing with him amongst all of the others during the workday when I am gone. He's 2, his brothers are 5 and 3 and his sister is 8 mos.

Apparently it means that he thinks he's talking, but he's just babbling. You're supposed to cheerfully repeat the same word over and over to him while you're doing whatever it is "more?, more? more? more?" to encourage him to speak up before you give him more milk, or whatever.

All of the Tunakids have one trait in common. They are extraordinarily stubborn. I say that meaning well beyond what the average aged child is. So it is often difficult to tell if he's suffering or being a pain.

What it results in, along with regular behavior (i.e. bad) from the other two boys, is Tunakid #2 just banging his head on the floor and pushing TunaWife out of the way, getting between her and lunch/dinner she's trying to prepare/clean up after. At the end of the day she's pissed off and frustrated, not only because of what is happening, but also because she feels like she (we) is (are) failing him.

Any thoughts?

If I can contribute something light and useless, maybe with two big brothers, a little sister and a Mom, he just doesn't really have time to get a word in edgewise...

I have a very stubborn child that is approximately the same age. Linguistically it seems as if he's on track, but who's to know for sure. He's certainly got a lot of words but....who knows. I don't worry about it too much. He communicates with us in the way he needs to to get his point across, and we communicate back to him the way we need to so he understands us. The pounding his head on the floor thing is frustration. SOMETHING he's either doing or not doing is bothering him. It can be as simple as not getting a banana, or as serious as taking a knife from him that he obviously should not be playing with. Either way, it's usually a situation where he wants to be in control, but cannot. Generally speaking, I ignore it. Keep an eye on him, make sure he isn't going to get hurt, but don't react. Ultimately what he's doing is testing his limits as to what he can do to get what he wants. Same reason he's getting in the way of the wife. He wants you to do what HE wants to do. Mine is a big fan of bringing me my shoes and attempting to put them on me, because shoes on means we go. He likes to go.

To be said- I don't think you're failing him at all. Kids learn different things at different rates. Granted i've only got the one- but I've had to do a lot of research/questioning on the side because I have no idea if my kid is doing what a kid should be doing. I sorta learned along the way as long as he's happy, well fed (and he is, holy crap this kid can EAT) and enjoying life, who cares. I think too many people put too many stressors on milestones and if a kid misses one, all hell breaks loose. Additionally- he may not be communicating because he doesn't have to. You've got Tuna 1+2 ahead of him, both of whom I expect are talking quite regularly. Same thing happened with my wifes...cousins? kid... he was nearly 2 before he talked, he had his older brothers to do it for him. Doesn't mean he's DD in any way shape or form, he figured out what he needed to get what he wanted, and it worked for him.

The one thing I would do- and I know you're REALLY good at doing this (I'm not just blowing smoke up your ass, I watch your build threads with the other ones) is make sure you spend some personal time with him. I realize with 4 kids that is EXTREMELY difficult, but even 5-10 min where it's just you and #3 time, can be a huge help. A lot of what my kid is learning linguistically is from the time we spend directly together. Be it stirring dinner on the stove, playing monster trucks, whatever- he picks all that up. This will work twofold for you- as I suspect he's feeling the need for parent time, ESPECIALLY mommy time. These things are invaluable to a kid. Do that, and you're gravy.

If you want, I can point you towards my wife. She's not a speech therapist, but she got her degree in social studies/ early childhood intervention. It's her job to teach kids the things they need to cope with life, and she's damn good at what she does. I know she'd be more than happy to help.

Not sure if this helps at all or not. I have three kids, #2 did not say a word until he was 3 years old. At one point it got concerning, but as soon as he turned 3 he started talking quite fast.

He is almost 5 years old now and I cant shut him up. He seriously will not stop talking for a minute, lol.

I have a couple of anecdotes to share.

First is a story from my mom about me as a child. BTW, I'm an only child.

Apparently when I was 3? (I'm pretty sure, maybe close to or after I turned 4) I still hadn't began to speak. My mom took me to the doctor, he told her to make sure I used words and didn't babble/grunt or point and get what I wanted. She started doing that, and I haven't shut up since.

Second is about a recent visit to my BIL's house. He has 4 girls. The oldest will be 8 the next 6 then 2 then the youngest is <a year. The 2 year old has started acting out, she hasn't quite gotten to where she can communicate well. They think (an me and SWMBO agree) that previously the older child had started speaking before they had a baby. In this case, she (2 yr old) hasn't started speaking and there is a new baby that gets a lot of attention. This has lead to a lot of stressful situations around the house during the day.

I'm not a parent, I'm just sharing what info I have from knowledgeable people.

Decipher-morgan.com wifes site about raising our autistic son. She can help and point you in the right direction. Shoot her a line and tell her I sent you and tell there from GRM

My wife is a speech therapist with a focus on preschool to school aged kids, I'll ask her about this tonight or tomorrow..

If you don't hear from me by the end of the weekend, feel free to send me an email to remind me :) Either a PM on here or my user name @gmail.com.

Tuna55 - My wife asked whether you've tried sign language with the kids?

She recommends trying to get him to communicate even non verbally, as it'll reduce the frustration with everyone around him and at least the family can function properly. After the stress levels are under control, and communication is at least happening, then speech itself can be focused on.

There's some videos (for purchase or rental from the library, possibly youtube) called signing time that's quite good.

Every kid she's known to watch those videos just loves to watch them, so it gives the parents a chance to "unwind" a bit and watch the videos, the siblings get to learn as well, so it's a chance to bond a bit, and the kiddies love it.

She says as a backup to signing you can use pictures, but that can be difficult as you have to have pictures on everything in your house or the kid needs a picture book, and of course it's restrictive because if you don't have a picture, it's hard to communicate it.

She stresses that non-verbal communication (sign, picture, etc) has no affect on the kid learning verbal communication, so you don't have to worry that you're "not focusing" on the right area.

tuna55 wrote: Apparently it means that he thinks he's talking, but he's just babbling.

I knew a girl like that in high school. And I've had a couple of coworkers that were the same.

I know, no help at all. But I couldn't resist. Good luck.

My son is not quite three and has been diagnosed with expressive language disorder, although it seems a lot like what you describe - he babbles a fair amount, but only seems to say a couple real words we can identify. I don't have much advice at this point, but this thread may be useful for comparing notes. He doesn't seem to be quite as frustrated by it, but it can sure be frustrating for me and Mrs. Mad Scientist. Just wanted to offer my encouragement, and keep an eye on this thread.

Some of it might just be a 2-year-old’s way of interacting with the world. We have three boys, the youngest turned 2 in June. He talks quite a bit, but sometimes he gets to where he can’t express himself and the frustration with that causes the stereotypical “terrible twos” style meltdown with tears, screaming at top of lungs, etc. Getting better as he learns more words, but we can totally tell that he’s the little one following two older brothers in lots of ways- mainly he doesn’t know/care that he’s not 5 or so, and he wants to be in the mix with the older boys, which isn’t always appropriate. I have seen in interacting with the three of them how some kids might not be pressured to talk if they have older siblings to help them with it- fortunately/unfortunately our youngest is pretty aggressive in nature, so he’s not going to wait on somebody else to help him. :D

Anyway, good luck – seek counsel of the pro and see what they say. I always like what our pediatrician says – he’s been seeing kids for about 35 years and seems to advocate a light hand on stuff like intervening in this kind of thing too early. I remember doing a lot of questioning on our second, since he pretty much came out screaming (colic, 6 months…) and hasn’t ever really stopped (he’s STILL a loud kid)- doc’s advice was basically “he’ll grow out of it- just deal with it and it’ll pass.” I’d also be a bit curious how you wound up referred to a specialist on speech in a 2 year old, was it your pediatrician who recommended or did you or your wife drive that engagement? Some of that varies with the kid’s exact age, too – a 25 month old with problems talking is different from a 35 month old with problems talking. I hate the whole “oh, this is X and he’s Y months old” thing, except for situations like this one…

Judging from the other thread you’re doing fine. You guys deserve a medal with four – we’re over capacity in many ways with three at my house, so I can’t imagine what the zoo at your place could be like.

Our EA (early interventionist) pro is good, and seems to be helping. She makes things memorable and fun enough that he remembers them. He now has "duck" and a couple of others. Our speech therapist is goofy. She gave her notice the second week she was here, and was late both today and last week by a significant amount. We're switching speech therapists obviously.

The difference between delayed speech and apraxia is important. One means that the kid doesn't learn how to talk, and the other means he thinks he's talking but he isn't. It's hard to diagnose at this age.

We're currently working through what we are going to do when he's three and he ages out of Babynet. There are places that pull him out of preschool a few times a week and do things with him offsite. It's all a little premature, really, because we don't know for sure what it is.

We've tried signing, and we haven't gotten anywhere. None of our kids signed well, and we tried to teach them all. Tunakid #3 grunts and screams to communicate most of the time.

Things are improving. He smiles a lot more because Tunawife and I are making more efforts towards rewarding words and listening hard when he tries to speak. He's better, but still a combo of really stubborn behavior makes some times of the day (right before meals especially) super ugly.

Pediatrician didn't recommend it, it was through a friend at church, and he definitely qualified as 'delayed'. When we last went (last week) he (Pediatrician) was glad we were in that program.

I hope that updates and gives answers to those that asked questions. Thanks for the support.

My wife said that beyond trying to communicate more non-verbally, she wouldn't recommend any sort of actual speech therapy without meeting the kid..

That said: Some of the basics are always good, though, if the kid enjoys songs, singing with him or maybe rhyming with him are good ways to work repetition in. Of course, make sure you're reading a lot of picture books, which helps reinforce the pointing & expressing part of communication.

If sign isn't working for your family, she recommended The Big Book of exclamations, which is a book dedicated to just getting the kid to work on basic sound communications, such as "uh-oh" and "oh no" and other sounds of speech.

If you guys like videos instead, she said that a lot of her kids really worked well with these Baby Babble videos that work on things like blowing raspberries and other expressive kinds of sounds & expressions.

She stressed that any repetitions are good, so even if you can play games of making silly faces at each other and get him to wiggle his tongue when you wiggle yours, etc. Tongue movements are a big one that she works on with apraxic kids. She says that's because apraxia is generally regarded as a neurological issue, where the brain and the muscles are kind of "disconnected." (I didn't know this), but you can have apraxia of of anything, legs, arms, etc.. Focusing on tongue & lips movements can be extremely valuable, because by "reconnecting" the brain to tongue & lip movements, it can later be useful to start imitating sounds better.

Good luck!

tuna55 wrote: Our EA (early interventionist) pro is good, and seems to be helping. She makes things memorable and fun enough that he remembers them. He now has "duck" and a couple of others. Our speech therapist is goofy. She gave her notice the second week she was here, and was late both today and last week by a significant amount. We're switching speech therapists obviously. The difference between delayed speech and apraxia is important. One means that the kid doesn't learn how to talk, and the other means he thinks he's talking but he isn't. It's hard to diagnose at this age. We're currently working through what we are going to do when he's three and he ages out of Babynet. There are places that pull him out of preschool a few times a week and do things with him offsite. It's all a little premature, really, because we don't know for sure what it is. We've tried signing, and we haven't gotten anywhere. None of our kids signed well, and we tried to teach them all. Tunakid #3 grunts and screams to communicate most of the time. Things are improving. He smiles a lot more because Tunawife and I are making more efforts towards rewarding words and listening hard when he tries to speak. He's better, but still a combo of really stubborn behavior makes some times of the day (right before meals especially) super ugly. Pediatrician didn't recommend it, it was through a friend at church, and he definitely qualified as 'delayed'. When we last went (last week) he (Pediatrician) was glad we were in that program. I hope that updates and gives answers to those that asked questions. Thanks for the support.

You sure it's "duck"? I may or may not have heard minimndsm uttering garage talk on occasion. I plan to deny it if the wife ever hears it.