Re: stuttering

[Guest guest]

Just FYI, there was a very incredible article about stuttering in the 4/2/01

edition of US News and World Report. It gives a pretty good description of

the latest research about stuttering and some pictorials of brain scans, and

opinions about what goes wrong. There is also some information about latest

treatments. It was very interesting.

[Guest guest]

My 4 year-old apraxic daughter has manifested fluency issues since thebeginning of March -- that is, stuttering. Not just a little bit, butfull-blown, every type of disfluency. Repetitions of first sounds of words,then of entire words, prolongation of sounds in words, blocking -- you nameit. There did not seem to be any special set of circumstances which causedher to get worse, for example, if she was tired, excited, cranky, etc.We have been attending the Fluency Workshop sessions through our local Preschool Speech and Language program for the past 5 weeks. I have been using the techniques they suggested which include:slowing down my speech, keeping it simple (no long, complicated sentences),maintain eye contact, wait for Maddie to finish talking, wait a couple ofseconds, then respond.Two weeks ago, Maddie seemed worse than ever. She has been out of therapy at thesuggestion of the fluency expert and her own SLP, to reduce demands on her.I was wondering what to do -- keep her out of therapy, try another techniquefor therapy, go to a fluency expert, go to her regular therapist?Today we went for our final session of the fluency workshop which was tovideotape myself and Maddie playing and the SLP would critique mytechniques. Well, Maddie has been fluent for about a week now, and I wasn'tsure if she would be today. Not only was she totally fluent, she spoke insentences that were grammatically correct (she used to use "telegraphicspeech" -- no verbs, articles, plurals, etc). AND she picked up a toy, andsaid:"Look mom, a helicopter". A four syllable word, spontaneous, notmodeled.To say we were "floored" is an understatement.The way the fluency expert explained it made a lot of sense. She basedit on the "capacities/demands" model. Maddie has been going through a growthspurt in terms of speech/language development. Many demands are being placedon her, but she does not have the capacity to produce all the new words andsounds. Her way of manifesting this great demand being placed on her was tobecome disfluent, which is basically a planning issue. She would get "stuck"on sounds and words, trying to sort it all out in her head, to "plan it".Good news is that the traditional methods to work with disfluency worked forus. Bad news is that Maddie is at risk for disfluency the next time she goesthrough a developmental growth spurt. so now we have to figure out when thespurt is starting and learn how to work with her so that we can minimize thefluency issues that may arise as a result of this growth.The things that I learned to encourage Maddie to talk without placingdemands on her were to cut out questions from conversation with her. Don'tmake her answer complicated questions. Use non-questions instead toconverse, things like: "I wonder..., I think..., I guess..., Maybe..."Another biggie, but really hard for me to do is to slow down your ownspeech. It makes it easier for the child to understand you, also it allowsthe child to learn more easily from your language model. They don't feelthat they have to get it all out before they lose their turn to talk, and itgives them more time to plan what they want to say. And most important isto repeat back what the child says, so that shows them that you arelistening.The best thing is that these strategies are not just great for disfluency,they work really well all the time for kids that have planning issues likeapraxia of speech.Rhonda son Cherrymom to Maddie, age 4, oral-motor sequencing issues, suspected apraxicRichmond Hill, Ontario CANADA

Visit ECHO - Canada's Apraxia Support Group website at http://apraxiaontario.homestead.com/

[Guest guest]

Th stuttering with most apraxic kids is not actual stuttering- it is a word

retrieval problem... d

Re:[ ] Re: stuttering

I admit, I do not post on here much,no time I guess.Occasionally I read

posts,and reply. My son is apraxic, 5, moderate, but he does stutter, and

started that about 1 yr ago. Usually it seems he does it when he is in a hurry

to say something and stops when i say slow down, etc. When kids are Apraxic, is

stuttering something they will continue to do? I do not know much about Apraxia,

mostly becuase my husband does not want to hear it, but, If anyone can answer

that I would appreciate it, ALSO, he seems to not understand or comprehend the

fact he cannot have or do things. Like you cant have that right now, its almost

like he doesnt understand that,and keeps on and on until he gets it. Is this

part of something else. Thanks!!

Danelle mom of Hannah,9, Hank (apraxic) 5, and HollieBrook 3

" Keeper of the Light "

*LAKE ST. CLAIR LIGHT* EST. 1941

LAKE ST. CLAIR MI.

[Guest guest]

I have a 12 year old daughter with severe verbal apraxia. She was diagnosed

when she was 2 and was drooling constantly. She was a little late with some

motor skills, but has caught up in that area. Speech continues to be a

major issue for her. She has quite a few words and uses phrases but is by

no means fluent. Progress has been extremely slow. She does do better when

she is reading. Recently she has shown some increase in her verbal

ability, but along with it, she is really beginning to stutter. Earlier she

would stammer with uh, uh, um etc. now she seems to get the word stuck in

her mouth while trying to get that first consonant sound out. As frustrated

as she was before, this seems to be bothering her more. Has anyone seen

stuttering emerge as speech starts to progress?

Joyce Cerulo

Medway, MA Jcerulo@...

Re:[ ] Re: stuttering

> >

> >

> > I admit, I do not post on here much,no time I guess.Occasionally

> I read posts,and reply. My son is apraxic, 5, moderate, but he does

> stutter, and started that about 1 yr ago. Usually it seems he does

> it when he is in a hurry to say something and stops when i say slow

> down, etc. When kids are Apraxic, is stuttering something they will

> continue to do? I do not know much about Apraxia, mostly becuase my

> husband does not want to hear it, but, If anyone can answer that I

> would appreciate it, ALSO, he seems to not understand or comprehend

> the fact he cannot have or do things. Like you cant have that right

> now, its almost like he doesnt understand that,and keeps on and on

> until he gets it. Is this part of something else. Thanks!!

> >

> > Danelle mom of Hannah,9, Hank (apraxic) 5, and HollieBrook 3

[Guest guest]

Hi :

I used to stutter- from nerves: I had the words. I have not stuttered since 5th

grade. Dakota has since told me & his doctors what he was feeling when he went

through this the second time at about 8 yrs of age. He " could not find what word

he wanted to get in his mouth " . It was during episodes of tremendous growth-

both physically and in language development. His best friend has a terrible

stutter- he has told us that he has the words, just messes up getting them out.

Dakota has been studied by Harvard, Duke, Yale, specialists at the Dan Marino

Center, and Megson- who all got called in when we went through this the

second time. I am very glad that all agreed it was a word retrieval problem

then- as that is exactly what he describes now when questioned about it.

Remember though, he was dyspraxic, not apraxic.... depending on your team of

specialists, they can be two different things-so the " stutter " may be different

also?

All the diagnoses/labels are similar yet different- so it is terribly confusing

to decide what is actually going on if they cannot tell you...and what factors (

environmental/ stress/ neurological, etc.,) figure into each separate child and

each issue/stumbling block... the overlap needs to be looked at much further- I

agree with you.

D

Re:[ ] Re: stuttering

Hi !

Question -Then how do you know that stuttering isn't a word finding

problem too? Earl once said " Once a stutterer always a

stutterer " Let's ask him! Yet he and most stutterers don't stutter

when reading something. Apraxic children do much better when

given " visual cues " too. For those of you with older apraxic children

do they talk better when reading something? Tanner does (but he's

only 6 and on the easy reading books)

I do believe that there could be possible overlaps between

stuttering and apraxia based on the number of children in our group

who go through this once they begin to talk, and based on the

knowledge that many conditions of communication impairment can

overlap. It's known there can be overlaps between apraxia and

dysarthria -and apraxia and dyslexia/ADHD/learning

disorders/autism/hypotonia/DSI/SLI too -so why not stuttering? Here

are some other conditions stuttering can overlap in.

http://web.nmsu.edu/~lleeper/pages/Fluency/SPED/

I had an SLP that told me that apraxic children that stutter aren't

stuttering -they are " dysfluent " I question everyone -and I still

keep my open mind, my questions, and my doubts. I don't believe

I'll have any strong beliefs about what apraxia is or is not until

there is at least some neurological research done on it. It's way

to soon to shut the door to this case even though I know in the

world of speech some have. I'm sure in some textbook somewhere

there is some long and intricate definition between dysfluency and

stuttering -and why apraxia has nothing to do with stuttering only

dysfluency and also explain why in some parts of the world they are

looked at as one in the same. I also heard that what apraxic

children go through may be partly developmental-I believe that's the

case most of the time in any child that stutters however.

Our children are left locked in the dark unable to call out for help

due to a strange name to a diagnosis that has been the best kept

secret for years. If you do a search on the (American Academy of

Pediatrics) AAP website for apraxia in pediatrics you come up

with " No documents matched the query " A pediatric condition rising

in epidemic proportions and yet complete and total silence. At the

AAP however there are 44 matches for autism - 4 for PDD (and even 2

for PDD-NOS which means again?) Autism is on the rise in schools -

except there is no classification for " apraxia " only autism or LD or

speech or language impaired. Apraxic children are conveniently filed into

each of

these groups -both appropriately and inappropriately. Numbers of

apraxic children in the schools or life? -read above-how would you know?

Autism is on the rise - so is apraxia -with and mostly without

autism. Just like sensory integration dysfunction or mild

hypotonia -both which are found in most apraxic children -apraxia

co-exists in a large amount of conditions, syndromes, disorders and

impairments, outside of autism...and it also stands alone as the

child who is as one mother of a four year old just said to me " so

normal I could smack him " ...except he can't talk. (other than " ma " " da " and 4

other " words " )

At least the neurological aspects of stuttering are being studied.

Since apraxic children don't stutter and are instead " dysfluent " -or

assumed to be " developmentally dysfluent " then lets again not pay

attention to this group of children.

All our children deserve a smile and a voice -and an open mind to

help them get there.

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