I'm so lost on my son.

[mom2agang]

He's 7 1/2. He'll be 8 in November. He has severe verbal apraxia, phonological delay, dyslexia and if I labeled him more ADHD. We are still learning letter sounds. His speech therapist is specifically trained to work with kids like him . And she said he's the worst she's ever seen. We are working on the letter G in speech. Now all letter sounds are G. It's like his brain is frozen on g.

[Alicia64]

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

[Lecka]

We have had some "overgeneralizing" here as they call it.  My little son has been working on final "k" sounds and he will add a final k to words when in doubt.  

 

My older son learned k first and was supposed to do g second, and he started replacing "k" sounds with "g" sounds.  It broke my heart, after all of his hard work on "k."  But with him -- the speech therapist said he would sort through it over time, to some extent, she said they see it and it is part of the learning process of figuring out which sound to use.  

 

With my younger son -- they have stopped working on final k unless they do immediate "errorless learning" correction, they have taken him to the word level again, b/c he does it more at the phrase (is this the word?) level.  

 

My older son was more severe with his articulation and his phonological processing, but he did not need the errorless learning like my younger son does.  My son seems like he is less aware, he just wants to please people by making a final k sound.  (My younger son has autism and global developmental delay, so sometimes it is hard for him to understand what the goal is.... so it does seem more like he wants to do well and he thinks tha tmena add final k to the end of all his words sometimes.... it is not something I ever saw with my older son.)  My older son was making the mistake in a more productive way, he was figuring out how to do things.  

 

It was a few months with my older son, over a year plus, and he went through this process with several letter sounds and pairs.  But k/g was the hardest for him, and he had worked on k so hard, and for so long.  

 

I am sorry you don't sound like you are hearing more encouragement from the SLP.  I think sometimes they don't realize what it is like to be a parent.  It is great he is with someone who has good training in this area!!!!!!

 

And on the bright side ----- awesome he is having some success with g!!!!!  If this helps him get really solid on g, then it will be great he has a letter he is really solid with.  Trying to look for a silver lining, lol.  

[PeterPan]

He's 7 1/2. He'll be 8 in November. He has severe verbal apraxia, phonological delay, dyslexia and if I labeled him more ADHD. We are still learning letter sounds. His speech therapist is specifically trained to work with kids like him . And she said he's the worst she's ever seen. We are working on the letter G in speech. Now all letter sounds are G. It's like his brain is frozen on g.

What type of therapy is she doing with him?  PROMPT? Kauffman?  Something else?  

 

My ds with moderate verbal apraxia gets PROMPT therapy, but I have to drive 2 1/2 hours each way.  Not very practical, but if your therapy isn't getting breakthroughs, a different therapy might help.  Also for us omega 3 helps.  Have you gotten a full psych eval yet?  

[Lecka]

(I will add my kids don't have apraxia, so even though they have/had articulation delays, I know it is not the same level as apraxia.)

[mom2agang]

He has been doing Kaufman for 3 years. The program has worked wonders with my other children. But we are just at a lost with him.

[merry gardens]

I have no advice but ((((hugs)))) for all the hard work you are doing for your son!

 

[SandyKC]

He's 7 1/2. He'll be 8 in November. He has severe verbal apraxia, phonological delay, dyslexia and if I labeled him more ADHD. We are still learning letter sounds. His speech therapist is specifically trained to work with kids like him . And she said he's the worst she's ever seen. We are working on the letter G in speech. Now all letter sounds are G. It's like his brain is frozen on g.

HUGS!  Not a lot to offer in the way of help, other than a heads-up for future reference:

 

 If the phoneme of the day gets carried across to other words, then AVKO Sequential Spelling is not likely to be a good choice for a spelling program.  With my DS, we had similar problems with carryover, and with S.S., when he learned that a word pattern represents a certain sound (like -are as in care, glare, rare, etc.), when another form of that sound was introduced (like -air as in hair, pair, fair, etc.) then all prior words with that sound were suddenly spelled the NEW way, as in cair, glair, and rair.  

 

We had to use a strict, Orton-Gillingham based approach for spelling that taught rules and used multisensory memorization rather than anything with "families" of words. AVKO S.S. is a great program for some kids, but for my DS, it was a frustrating way to try to learn to spell!

[ElizabethB]

I have a friend whose son has apraxia. He did normal speech therapy for years with almost no progress. After the switch to PROMPT therapy, he made a lot of progress. (According to mom, this was when he was younger before we moved there.)

 

When I met him he was speaking totally normally. But, his speech/language processing issues were making it hard for him to learn to read. Marked print and extra repetitions of everything helped and he is now reading above grade level. He did CLE, Webster's Speller, my UPP and my lessons, and the 1879 marked McGuffey readers. He was very smart so was able to learn many different marked print systems. With a normal child I would stick to one or two marking systems.

[PeterPan]

He has been doing Kaufman for 3 years. The program has worked wonders with my other children. But we are just at a lost with him.

Then get PROMPT.  PROMPT is hands-on and can get breakthroughs where Kauffman can't.  

 

www.promptinstitute.com    It's a newer therapy, so sometimes you have to drive for it.  There will be levels of training (level 1, bridge/2, certified, and instructor).  Look at the provider locator maps and see what your options are in your area.  You only need therapy once a week with PROMPT (seriously!), so you can handle driving a bit farther for it.  I drive 2 1/2 hours each way, but hopefully you can find someone much closer.  

 

Btw, if he's the worst she's ever seen, she's not qualified to work with him.  Our therapist does ONLY apraxia and feeding disorders.  She's certified and now an instructor with PROMPT.  She works with non-verbal teens and other hard cases and gets breakthroughs.  The issue is the therapist, because she doesn't have the skills, sorry.  

 

In the meantime, if you want to work on reading, academics, etc., look up Rapid Prompting.  Even though it has prompting in the name, it's a technique for teaching non-verbal children.  

[PeterPan]

I have a friend whose son has apraxia. He did normal speech therapy for years with almost no progress. After the switch to PROMPT therapy, he made a lot of progress. (According to mom, this was when he was younger before we moved there.)

 

When I met him he was speaking totally normally. But, his speech/language processing issues were making it hard for him to learn to read. Marked print and extra repetitions of everything helped and he is now reading above grade level. He did CLE, Webster's Speller, my UPP and my lessons, and the 1879 marked McGuffey readers. He was very smart so was able to learn many different marked print systems. With a normal child I would stick to one or two marking systems.

Amen.  There are a LOT of stories like this.  PROMPT cleans up the wreckage left by traditional therapy.  Move on and don't be attached to your therapist.  The only thing that matters is RESULTS.  They cost the same whether they're jack of all trades or specialists.  

[Lecka]

My older son also made no progress with speech for a while.  I took him to pre-school speech group through the public schools, and he went to school speech in K.  At the end of K the school speech teacher quietly suggested I take him to the university speech clinic.  Then he did make progress.  When he started pre-school speech he was about a year or 18 months delayed, his articulation was a young 3-year-old level.  When he was tested at the university clinic, he tested at 2 years 11 months.  The woman there told me it didn't mean he went backwards, it was such a close number.  But -- he did not make any progress, either.  

 

I think 3 years of little progress might be a reason to look around, too.  I don't think it automatically is, b/c maybe he is getting as good of results as possible.  But, I think that there is a chance that another approach is good to try.

 

I also think sometimes a child and therapist can get in a rut, and it is good to change just for the sake of change, if things are not going really well.  

 

As far as what OhE said.... with my younger son, I had him at a speech/OT center where he was one of the most severe kids.  I ended up taking him out of there.  Now he is one of the most advanced kids in the agency.  I prefer it so much.  The therapists have got a ton of ideas, and they have a ton of ways to adapt programs for him.  They also truly think that he makes good progress.  At the place where he was one of the most severe, they just did not have the experience to help him.  They also were geared towards kids who had a different presentation than he did, and I think for those kids it is a very good center.  But it was not a good place for him and I am glad I took him out, even though I was unsure at the time.  It continues to be a well-known and popular location in town, and people occassionally ask me if I have thought of taking my son there, and then it is awkward that I didn't think it was a good fit.  B/c, it is a neat place, they have good toys and stuff.  Just not so much for him.  

 

I don't know what a good length of time is, to give therapy a chance.  I almost pulled my older son from OT after two months and after 3 months he made a little progress, and then I was glad I left him in.  That was after feeling like I got burned with the 2 years of no progress in speech for him, and pulling my younger son from the speech/OT center.  But it turned out it just took that long for him, and after that he did not have totally consistent progress, but he did have some progress.  

 

There is a questionnaire in The Mislabeled Child in the Listening chapter (iirc) where they have a checklist of questions, to see if a speech problem might be more motor-based or more auditory-processing based (as I remember it).  Looking at my son, he had many answers more on the auditory-processing side, and only a few on the motor side.  

 

http://www.listening-ears.com/lips.html  My son did not "do" Lips, but he did some similar things in speech therapy, and I think it was what helped him, it is what was lacking in the speech therapy he did before, for him, I think.  It says on this link (and it just seemed informational... it is a program various places use) that it can allow further progress in speech-language after hitting a plateau with traditional language.  

 

My son definitely had a problem with phonological awareness.  And, I think motor control was minor for him.  Whenever I have looked at apraxia checklists, there are a few things similar but overall it would not be quite it.  

 

My son could not hear l or r blends, he elided all l and r blends to w.  He substituted a lot of consonants for each other.  He had consonants he could not pronounce at all.  

 

But there is a thing I remember a little from The Mislabeled Child, that for some kids, they are aware they are saying a sound incorrectly, and for others, they are not aware.  My son was mostly not aware, as far as he knew he was saying things properly, he was saying things like he heard them.  

 

Just if any of that rings a bell.  If not, then ignore it, I think maybe looking at options you have for apraxia would be helpful.