Can Apraxia effect how my son writes his letters?

[djunec]

So my 7 year old has speech apraxia.  He is also struggling with writing his numbers and letters correctly.  He will occasionally write letters and numbers backwards.  But not always.  He consistently does it every day but it seems to always be a different number or a different letter he is getting backwards.  Could this be related to his apraxia? Any thoughts or tips would be appreciated.  This is our first year homeschooling.

[LizzyBee]

So my 7 year old has speech apraxia.  He is also struggling with writing his numbers and letters correctly.  He will occasionally write letters and numbers backwards.  But not always.  He consistently does it every day but it seems to always be a different number or a different letter he is getting backwards.  Could this be related to his apraxia? Any thoughts or tips would be appreciated.  This is our first year homeschooling.

 

Very often, apraxia of speech goes hand in hand with dyslexia.  I have a daughter and nephew who have both.  Dyslexia often causes a form of dysgraphia, difficulty with writing. If you google dyslexic dysgraphia, you will probably get some hits with samples of how these kids write.  OTOH, he is only 7 yo, and a lot of 7 yos still make reversals. 

[Χά�ων]

http://www.ncld.org/types-learning-disabilities/dyspraxia/what-is-dyspraxia Has some good information about how apraxia and dyspraxia affects areas beyond speech.

 

My DS had a lot of problems is oromotor control when he was younger. He has fewer issues with spontaneous speech now but he is severely affected in his reading. His speech therapist is working with him on ways for him to break the cycle and overcome the hiccups when he is attempting to sound out words.

 

Also look up dysgraphia.

 

 

ETA: My DS has some health issues that caused problems with his fingers and hands that makes it incredibly difficult to use his hands and fingers and causes handwriting and fine motor difficulties, so I cannot speak from experience on how apraxia and dyspraxia affects handwriting.

[djunec]

Thanks, I will look into that information.  He has been receiving speech and OT since he was 2.  Can this also have an impact on his ability to read aloud? This is another area that he tends to struggle with.

[Χά�ων]

Thanks, I will look into that information.  He has been receiving speech and OT since he was 2.  Can this also have an impact on his ability to read aloud? This is another area that he tends to struggle with.

Yes!!!!! Sadly, Yes. DS is 9 and it was thanks to an awesome speech therapist that this was figured out. Look and see if you have a Rite Care reading program near you or if a near by university has a speech and language disorders clinic. Therapy isn't cheap but Rite Care dyslexia centers and university speech and language centers help off set the cost.

[PeterPan]

Praxis is motor control, so some kids with verbal apraxia (praxis of speech) also have oral apraxia or a more global dyspraxia.  You need to talk with your OT about this.  I plan to have my boy eval'd by a np when he's 7, and you're right there.  The psych can help you tease apart what is being caused by motor control and what is the dyslexia and language processing.  What happens if he tries to replicate a shape or color or draw a stick figure from his mind?

 

Also, many kids with these issues turn out to have vision issues as well.  It's always good to get their vision checked to make sure what seems like dyslexia isn't a developmental vision issue.  COVD is where you find the doc for that.  You can do a regular appointment but tell them the symptoms you're seeing and ask them to *screen* for the developmental stuff.  

 

I agree with the others that a certain amount of reversals are common to a point.  I would do some work claying the letters or sculpting together intentionally and see if that helps.  It's part of the Davis (? I forget) therapy for dyslexia.  I didn't know about it at the time, but ironically my dd was VERY drawn to sculpting and did it quite a bit for years and years.  A friend suggested to me the children are driven to their own self-therapy...

[Χά�ων]

I want to chime in and say that OT eval would be helpful.

 

NP didn't help DS at all. His language disorder (he is fully verbal and has a large vocab) was not taken into consideration and she chalked everything up to a low IQ score. His nonverbal IQ score was 40points higher. I didn't get real answers and a plan of action until I took DS to a remedial learning specialist. Huge difference in responce and how to handle things.

[Tiramisu]

So my 7 year old has speech apraxia.  He is also struggling with writing his numbers and letters correctly.  He will occasionally write letters and numbers backwards.  But not always.  He consistently does it every day but it seems to always be a different number or a different letter he is getting backwards.  Could this be related to his apraxia? Any thoughts or tips would be appreciated.  This is our first year homeschooling.

 

One of mine had very clear enunciation from the time she started to talk, but would stammer a bit. We don't see it anymore more on the outside but she complains about having trouble getting the right words out. She also has had writing difficulty, including some reversals when younger but that resolved completely. She still had some at 7, I think, and that's not out of the range of normal at that age. There were other writing issues (spacing, forgetting punctuation) but they also resolved, perhaps just at a slower pace than average. However, she has poor handwriting and prefers typing. She is not dyslexic. Besides a short stint of OT for SPD (mostly tactile sensitivity, but the OT picked up the other problems), we have not done therapy, so I can't make any specific recommendation for that. She has taken piano lessons and martial arts for years, and I believe they have been helpful for her.

 

I have thought that sensory processing issues and dyspraxia are just two sides of the same coin.

[LizzyBee]

A friend suggested to me the children are driven to their own self-therapy...

 

I totally agree!  My dd is drawn to crocheting and working with clay, which are relaxing for her ADHD, and Irish dance, which is stimulating for her SPD.

[PeterPan]

I want to chime in and say that OT eval would be helpful.

 

NP didn't help DS at all. His language disorder (he is fully verbal and has a large vocab) was not taken into consideration and she chalked everything up to a low IQ score. His nonverbal IQ score was 40points higher. I didn't get real answers and a plan of action until I took DS to a remedial learning specialist. Huge difference in responce and how to handle things.

Just out of curiosity, has he been checked for CAPD?  I was talking with an audiologist (trying to figure out if that was a rabbit trail I should be following with my kids), and they said one of the primary things they look for is a discrepancy like you're describing between verbal and performance IQ.  Obviously I don't know enough to know if there are other explanations for it, but that was one the audiologist said they would expect to see in a child with auditory processing issues.  My dd has no such gap (but also did not have apraxia of speech).  My ds has moderate verbal apraxia (actually we went to therapy today!) and I expect his verbal IQ will be high like my dd's.  So I would *not* necessarily expect verbal IQ to be low just based on apraxia.  I don't have his scores yet, but I'm just saying that's what I'm seeing.  

[Χά�ων]

Just out of curiosity, has he been checked for CAPD?  I was talking with an audiologist (trying to figure out if that was a rabbit trail I should be following with my kids), and they said one of the primary things they look for is a discrepancy like you're describing between verbal and performance IQ.  Obviously I don't know enough to know if there are other explanations for it, but that was one the audiologist said they would expect to see in a child with auditory processing issues.  My dd has no such gap (but also did not have apraxia of speech).  My ds has moderate verbal apraxia (actually we went to therapy today!) and I expect his verbal IQ will be high like my dd's.  So I would *not* necessarily expect verbal IQ to be low just based on apraxia.  I don't have his scores yet, but I'm just saying that's what I'm seeing.  

Yes, He is affected in all 4 areas and considered severe-profound. I took him to Kansas City to be testing by Dr. Jack Katz (Dr. Katz wrote the book on CAPD, literally!) Dr. Katz recommended a speech therapist and DS sees her. She works only with children with CAPD. DS has gone through most of the program for CAPD and is now working on language goals and overcoming his apraxia and how it affects his reading. She doesn't take DS's insurance and it is really hard to make the therapy work. We are using the money that would normally go into savings, but it has been worth every penny. DS would misunderstand me when I would joke around and would be offended by a joke. No, he laughs! He used to mishear and for a long time he misheard to the extent that he thought we hated him :( Poor guy. He is now able to understand what is being said to him and is able to understand that what he heard was not what was said.

 

DS also gets speech therapy through a near by university. They coordinate with his speech therapist and have a grant to through Rite Care for a dyslexia clinic. They use 3 different programs. Barton, one I have never heard of and Linda-Mood Bell. Since it is through the university testing was $45 (3 days worth!) and it is $100/semester and $50/summer. They also treat CAPD!! The local university is an often under used resource.

[Lecka]

Oh, good! I was reading along and I was going to say one program and a program type for another. One Lindamood Bell Lips and one Barton.

 

Even if he doesn't have dyslexia per se, I think reading about dyslexia is helpful. There is a lot of overlap in what is going on.

 

My older son was not diagnosed with apraxia but he did speech therapy with a program similar to lips and it helped him a lot. He was not able to tell apart a lot of consonant sounds before that. He was not able to learn a lot of letter sounds because they sounded the same to him.

 

Now he is 8 and in OT for a lot of motor coordination things and eye tracking.

 

There is a cluster of things that can go together that all have to do with coordination.

 

My son has not had a full evaluation. He has had a full speech and language battery (lasting a few hours) and he has had a pretty thorough OT evaluation. He has not been tested for dyslexia. Because I have worked with him he is reading on grade level in 3rd grade. He gets accomodations at school for handwriting and the OT we see thinks he is in the dysgraphia category, but he is still making progress with his handwriting.

 

Lips and Barton are both used for dyslexia. However since he is already doing these programs -- that is really good. They are really good programs.

[Tiramisu]

....

 

There is a cluster of things that can go together that all have to do with coordination.

 

...

 

 

I absolutely agree with this. It took me years and an np eval for me to get it. We think of coordination as having to do with motor skills but this stuff affects all neurons, motor and sensory. Even the type of CAPD I'm most familiar with appears, essentially, to be a coordination problem. 

[Lecka]

There is a sentence in a book (surely Overcoming Dyslexia or The Mislabelled Child) that says "sometimes with dyslexia all these things go together and they all have to do with coordination."

 

It was described as a sub-set of dyslexia from the viewpoint of the author.

 

Maybe all that means is that the person who has noticed the sub-set deals with dyslexia primarily and sees it from that angle.

 

But still it has been helpful to me.

[Tiramisu]

There is a sentence in a book (surely Overcoming Dyslexia or The Mislabelled Child) that says "sometimes with dyslexia all these things go together and they all have to do with coordination."

 

It was described as a sub-set of dyslexia from the viewpoint of the author.

 

Maybe all that means is that the person who has noticed the sub-set deals with dyslexia primarily and sees it from that angle.

 

But still it has been helpful to me.

 

Very interesting. Thank you for sharing. It's helpful for me, too.

 

I keep trying to understand all these things I haven't understood but struggled with dealing with in life. If through explanations like this, I can develop a better paradigm for understanding, it's easier for me to come to an acceptance. Perhaps other people don't need this and can move on without it, but it helps me so much. It's funny that one of my dd's is the same way, and won't rest until she knows everything and they why's so she can put things in their mental place. It's something we share, but can make me crazy in having to deal with in her.  :001_rolleyes:

[djunec]

Just wanted to let you all know this OT suggested that we bring him in the have his eye's checked for tracking issues.  We will be going next week. 

[PeterPan]

Just wanted to let you all know this OT suggested that we bring him in the have his eye's checked for tracking issues.  We will be going next week. 

Although some OTs will try to treat it, and although there is an angle the OT can come at that helps, in actuality you need to go to a developmental optometrist to get him checked fully.  Don't screw around.  Do both if you want.  Just the OT though, wouldn't do.  Get his eyes properly checked by a good developmental optometrist.  They have two ends of the stick with vision, and you want both.  

 

To find a dev. optometrist, go to COVD.  I mentioned that in my other post to you.  Oh, and yes I get my ds with apraxia checked.  If the dc have tone issues, they will also often turn out to have dev. vision issues.

[Lecka]

Good luck at the appointment!