So if you don’t know about Averie’s speech delay yet, you
must be new here ;-), but we finally have an official diagnosis: speech apraxia.
Apraxia is actually thought to be a neurological disorder
because it is, basically, a problem with the brain communicating to the mouth
how it should move to form words. Kids
with apraxia generally have much better receptive speech than expressive
(that’s Averie), have severe expressive delays (yep, she’s in the 4th
percentile) and will often substitute their own “words” for real words because
they can’t make the sounds correctly (also her).
We’ve had mixed feelings about the services we are receiving
through early intervention lately and at our EI speech therapist’s urging, we
enrolled Averie in private speech therapy.
Oh my. The price tag
on that is…high, and because Averie’s delay is not caused by “injury, illness
or autism spectrum disorder”, it is not covered by our (otherwise awesome)
insurance. But Averie has only been with Paige (her private therapist) for a month and we are already seeing HUGE progress so I know it is worth
every penny.
I am so grateful that Chris is able to get so many extra
hours right now and that we’re still able to live with my parents because
otherwise, I don’t know if we could manage it and who knows how long it could
take before Averie would talk, if ever, if we weren’t able to get help for her
during this formative time.
So she’ll be in the private therapy for the foreseeable
future and she will have an assessment done by the local school district a
little closer to her 3rd birthday.
If she still qualifies (which she should – progress with apraxia tends
to be quite slow), she may either get additional speech therapy through the
school district or be eligible to attend preschool and still get the speech
therapy there. We’re kind of hoping for
the preschool – we socialize her as much as we can, but I think it would really
be great for her.
Right now, the things Averie can reliably say:
Wow
Uh-oh
Oh, no (sounds like Oh, doh)
Nom nom! (when she wants to eat what you have, this one
makes me laugh)
Done
No. I think this is
one of those ones that we are supposed to dread but we were elated when she
said it, and it’s hard not to laugh at the sly voice she says it when she’s
being naughty!
Dah for Daddy and Deh for Declan
Bye (sometimes; inconsistency is another problem with apraxia)
But the biggest one of all:
Mom! She really,
really means it this time. Months and
months ago, when she started saying “mama” we thought that was it, but it seems
that was more the apraxia babble. But
now she actually says it for me, to me.
I love it.
Averie can make all but three alphabet letter sounds
independently (J, Q and X) but struggles to combine them into any words, so
even though she can say “pah” and “tee” separately, she can’t say “potty”,
which we are trying to enforce now for potty training later.
What she lacks in verbal words, she makes up for in signs: milk, more, all done, please, thank you, I’m sorry, open,
eat, drink, and down.
We have a long road ahead but I know we will get there.
3 comments:
I've been trying to get Sully to say "potty" too. He says something between "bobby and poppy." It's pretty cute. But really, all they need to say is "pee" or sign it or grab their bum, right? Sully just pees on the floor without doing any of those things, so I guess what he needs is a diaper.
I bet it makes both you and Chris feel so much better knowing what's going on! And I can't imagine the elation Averie feels now that she's learning and making progress to communicate her feelings, which may have been more frustrating for her to do before! I hope and pray things progress quickly for all of you! :)
she's so smart! i'm so glad she says mom for you! We started "signing time" for mikah not only are the kids signing they are talking better! it's weird. Look into it :)
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