Guest guest Posted August 2, 2004 Report Share Posted August 2, 2004 Hi All, Haven't received any replies yet, so I am reposting in case it was overlooked. Thanks for reading! My son Chase (dx: Oral/Verbal Apraxia, GERD, Hypotonia, Dysphasia, FTT and g-tube dependent) just turned 4 on July 27th. He has been receiving 1 hour per week of private ST year-round along with ST and OT in preschool during the school year only. We decided to take a therapy holiday this month from private ST for the sake of sanity. Chase's speech has just exploded over the past 6mo. He's able to string 4-6 word combinations to form unstructured sentences. I can understand almost all of Chase's speech, but other family members and friends can understand approx 50-70% of his speech. He definitely does not speak at an age appropriate level. Chase is still g-tube fed for total nutritional needs. He can eat very small amounts of foods, but not enough to keep a mouse alive. He still has poor tongue control and has some difficulty maneuvering foods in his mouth. He is also very afraid of choking and vomiting. We just changed insurance providers yet again. The new insurance will cover only 20 visits of either ST or OT (not both) per calendar year. I need some advice as to what area should we concentrate on more. He's made such great progress in speech, going from approx 25-30 words/approximations last November to over 150+ words/approximations at present, but lacks severely in the eating department. Would it be wrong to stop private speech therapy to work on oral-motor feeding therapy? We truly can not afford to do both at this time, with my husband out on a work related injury. Chase will be starting school August 23rd and will get ST and OT at that time, but the feeding aspect is not in his IEP. I'm thinking that once Chase is self-sufficient with eating by mouth, his speech will become much clearer and understandable. What to you think? Thanks, Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 2, 2004 Report Share Posted August 2, 2004 hi kristen, how I try to decide what is more important is I look at survival needs. food,shelter,clothes, etc. I believe eating is a very important issue and that if I had to choose I would choose to have him learn to eat. speech can be done with this, if therapist is good. labeling foods, verbs,etc. I'm sure your working on speech as well. I'm not sure if it will help with speech or not, I mean he could get stronger with his oral motor muscles, it could happen. I hope this helped and this is just one mom's opinion chris ps- make sure you get an excellent OT who maybe specializes with feeding therapy, I know that a lot of therapist who stay away from feeding issues and just do other sensory related activities. Emery <jahnk@...> wrote: Hi All, Haven't received any replies yet, so I am reposting in case it was overlooked. Thanks for reading! My son Chase (dx: Oral/Verbal Apraxia, GERD, Hypotonia, Dysphasia, FTT and g-tube dependent) just turned 4 on July 27th. He has been receiving 1 hour per week of private ST year-round along with ST and OT in preschool during the school year only. We decided to take a therapy holiday this month from private ST for the sake of sanity. Chase's speech has just exploded over the past 6mo. He's able to string 4-6 word combinations to form unstructured sentences. I can understand almost all of Chase's speech, but other family members and friends can understand approx 50-70% of his speech. He definitely does not speak at an age appropriate level. Chase is still g-tube fed for total nutritional needs. He can eat very small amounts of foods, but not enough to keep a mouse alive. He still has poor tongue control and has some difficulty maneuvering foods in his mouth. He is also very afraid of choking and vomiting. We just changed insurance providers yet again. The new insurance will cover only 20 visits of either ST or OT (not both) per calendar year. I need some advice as to what area should we concentrate on more. He's made such great progress in speech, going from approx 25-30 words/approximations last November to over 150+ words/approximations at present, but lacks severely in the eating department. Would it be wrong to stop private speech therapy to work on oral-motor feeding therapy? We truly can not afford to do both at this time, with my husband out on a work related injury. Chase will be starting school August 23rd and will get ST and OT at that time, but the feeding aspect is not in his IEP. I'm thinking that once Chase is self-sufficient with eating by mouth, his speech will become much clearer and understandable. What to you think? Thanks, Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 2, 2004 Report Share Posted August 2, 2004 Thanks for your opinion! There is an oral-motor feeding program at Rose Medical Center here in Colorado that was developed by Kay Toomey. I here it is the best. The feeding group Chase attended two 12wk sessions at Children's more or less worked on food acceptance ( the hierarchy of eating), which got him over most of his oral aversions, but really did not help much with the mechanics of eating. Thanks again, Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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