Any info on link between Apraxia and stuttering?

June 4, 2002

Hello ,

I was recently given your name as a good resource person on the link

between apraxia and stuttering. My 4 year old recently (in the past

3-4 weeks) has begun stuttering, and what originally looked like

the " normal developmental stuttering " that kids of this age go

through has very quickly progressed and become much worse than what

the SLP would consider normal developmental stuttering. It has

really thrown me for a loop, and is causing me much concern. I was

woondering what advice, knowledge, or experience you can offer me on

the subject.

Here is my original post to another listserv where I was directed to

you for your thoughts and expertise: (and thank you very much in

advance).

Hello,

It's been a long time since my last post. We've been extremely busy

with lots of therapy, school, etc. and have been so pleased with our

son, Nate's, progress in the past 6 months (he just turned 4). But

recently I have been feeling overwhelmed by the " other problems " that

seem to be unfolding before our eyes now that Nate is beginning to

use longer sentences and now that his confidence level has increased

to the point where he will communicate pretty freely with most

people, and has seemed to settle into the reality of working at

therapy. First was the word retreival problem, and now it is

stuttering.

I have read through the links on each of these disorders, but I am

finding no comfort or luck in figuring out how they each play into

his apraxia. After almost 2 years of theapy for apraxia, feeling

great about how far he's come, I was in tears and on my knees this

evening wondering why these knew, separate disorders have developed,

why, and how we are going to conquer them amidst the still real

struggle of apraxia. I find myself inwardly

screaming ... " NNNOOOOOO!!! NOT THIS TOO! NOT SOMETHING ELSE FOR MY

CHILD TO STRUGGLE THROUGH! "

I know I've seen others post about stuttering in the past, but didn't

really pay much attention. Can anyone offer me some insight, and

encouragement and advice in what stuttering and word retrireview

difficulties have to do with apraxia, and how to attack them...Where

should the priority of treatment lie? We are seeing an expert SLP

for childhood Apraxia, but she has told me in the past that she does

not really work well with stuttering.

My son got so stuck on the b sound in the word " burned " that I

thought he was just making boat or raspberry type noises for fun. I

didn't even realize at the time that he was trying repeatedly to say

the word, until I noticed him blinking through it, which was

something that his therapist told me to watch for. (Last 2 weeks or

so I noticed him starting to repeat whole words, or go back and start

again several times to the beginning of the sentence. We thought it

was probably just a normal phase, but it was markedly worse just

today and has me thrown into a complete tailspin). Why would he all

of a sudden have such tremendous difficulty like that/ Will it

clear up as quickly?

Please help me understand from someone who's been there, done

that...I am sure there must be someone on this wonderful list like my

Nate.

Thank you,

Bruntz, Mom to Nate the Great, 4yrs old with Apraxia, SI issues,

and now word retrireview and stuttering? (Colorado Springs,CO)

June 4, 2002

Hi !

What a powerful post you sent out and boy can I relate with your

feelings!! I said the exact same thing -actually my exact words

were " How cruel is it that first he can't talk, and now that he can

he stutters. Why?! " You can hear Tanner here:

http://www.debtsmart.com/talk/tanner.html

The more you study dysfluency the less panic

you'll have because you may come to believe that the two may not be as

different as we are led to understand. And after all -if you have a

choice between nonverbal or verbal with pockets of stuttering, you'll

probably choose the latter. The word dysfluent is a kind of

political problem in itself. It appears to be a fancy word for

stuttering-even though an expert may be able to explain what the

difference is. If you tell your friends that your child is going

through a " dysfluent stage " - you will get the same " what? " look and

questions that you do when you say your child has apraxia. However I

find most SLPs like to use the word dysfluent and will correct you if

you say stuttering. So you quickly learn to say " stuttering " to the

average person-and " dysfluent " to SLPs.

The current research

http://www.mankato.msus.edu/dept/comdis/kuster/research.html suggest

a connection between stuttering and (like apraxia) the neurological

coordination of the speech mechanism (motor speech?) Some of us do

believe with future research we may find definite links (or overlaps)

between stuttering and apraxia -but till they do the research, we as

parents are once again left to find out right now how to help our

children -kind of like how we as a group are finding out what the

best ratios of DHA, EPA, and GLA are in Omega 3 and Omega 6

formulas.

I have some posts below from the archives. In general, outside of Easy Does it

for Stuttering and conventional therapies like that -I found that

the best unconventional but anecdotally reported good therapies for stuttering

are cranial sacral, and therapeutic

listening. I also noticed that Tanner becomes dysfluent if I miss

giving him his EFAs -or if I give him the wrong dosage of EPA to DHA -

which is how I'm judging which works the best. I just started taking

Tanner to see Pat Treiber PhD in town, NJ who has shared more

information with me on this subject that I will begin to share here

once I learn more (Pat wrote a book on stuttering in children: Keys

to dealing with stuttering. Treiber, M. Barrons. 1993. 150

p. FRC 616.855 T787 Stuttering in children - Popular works.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0812046668/002-9409106-

8018413 )

Also (who just moved to Oregon!!) shared these website with us

in a recent post:

To the Teacher of the Nonfluent Child

R. Ramig, Ph.D.

http://www.stutteringrecovery.com/teacher.html

*Danger/ Warning Signs

*Stuttering Onset

*Do's & Don'ts

*Teasing in School

*Role of Emotions

An Effective Stuttering Therapy Approach for Children, Teens & Adults

http://www.stutteringrecovery.com/philosophy.html

In general -you will get a hodge podge of answers from the experts as

to what to work on. There are some views that the dysfluency in an

apraxic child is not a " true " dyfluency. Some say that since some

dysfluency is part developmental our children just go through it

later. Some say it's not a true stuttering but it's motor planning

issues from the apraxia. However since some of the stuttering

research suggests that stuttering may also be motor planning -go

figure! I can't fit all the strategies on here since this is already

so long, I will post more going ahead. I hope other parents and

professionals jump in to add more. This is a great topic you brought

up and I do hope (again) that we can discuss this more! Here are

some archived suggestions from me on this:

From: "

June 4, 2002

Hi,

I have the same problem with Adam. It is now becoming apparent to me that

Adam's apraxia is in the area of recall. He goes through periods where he talks

and talks then suddenly, he stops and falls way back to the beginning almost and

stutters and tries so hard to get his words out. He is searching and he can't

find it. These are painful times. His pronunciation is and always has been

very poor and difficult for those not close to him to understand. He is not

getting enough help and the school he is in has been so cold. He gets 2 half

hour sessions a week and that is it. I pay for another 1/2 hour session and am

always broke, worried, and afraid for him. He is very phonolgicaly speech

delayed and I believe mildly apraxic.

Nina

[ ] Any info on link between Apraxia and

stuttering?