..in the beginning

[Guest guest]

I have 7 yr old identical twin sons with apraxia..

normal birth 7.0 and 7.6 lbs and not premature

never babbled or had that baby giggle, very serious

no feeding or sucking issues -they did not over stuff--but did choke as they did

not move the

food around with their (non-working) tongues enough and would swallow

things too big

have 2 older brothers, both without apraxia and drs said that their brothers

spoke for them and they

did not have to speak and also told me about the twin talk

thing..(good one)

finally at 2 yrs old when the drs would ask how many words do they say like

horsey, byebye, mommy

daddy etc I would (as usual) say none and that there was something

wrong they told me that

they usually waited until 2 1/2 yrs old to start but suggested hearing

and speech evals.

hearing was fine, 3 diff. speech and lang evals all said

apraxia...started EI 4 hrs/week and

privately 1 -2 hours each/week

at around 3 they started Pro-EFA and began to talk after 8 months of therapy

with nothing

at 3 they ent'd preschool hand and had the lovely experience that most of us had

...handing over our

non-verbal children to basically strangers that had no clue what diff.

signs my kids knew or used

(my sons were extremely sensitive..ok cry babies..so I pried 20 little

fingers off me and handed

them to the bus aides.

at 5 ent'd a regular ed Kindergarten and they had speech 3 times/week at school

and 1 hour privately

joined soccer....L and B didn't have that classic low tone and rode

bikes, swam, etc

now at 7 are in reg 2nd....still with the communication impaired label.. they

still go to speech 3 times/wk

-1 ind. and 2 group with no more than 3 in group and not their twin.

they also go to resource

pull-out for reading and lang 80 min/day as they did fall behind in

blending words to read and

I wanted to alleviate frustration, possible embarrassment,

self-esteem, etc.

they still have apraxia and in my opinion always will...but have already used

strategies to overcome

things like words they know they have problems with...instead of thin

they choose skinny..

couldn't think of a better example

they are still not that confident when ordering from icecream man etc...so both

school and private slps

have them working on being the messengers, etc. classroom teachers

just informed me that

they both are very verbal in class and that teariness at 5 is no

longer an issue and as a matter

of fact, the one teacher asked how to spell volcano and L raised his

hand and gave the letters

as a cheer...which i felt was fresh and getting the class to laugh

and the teachers thought I

was nuts and laughed and reminded me of the times when they couldn't

get the name of their

dog out clearly and would start crying so the teacher would " can " the

lesson, to get them to

stop the tears and they would play a game...i find myself yelling at

them to be quiet and swore

5 years ago that I would never ever say that to them.....

My point in writing all of this was to encourage parents with newly diagnosed

children...my neur. said that they may never speak so we started signing and

pictures everywhere in the house...and I was panic stricken...found this site

and was literally on here for hours and hours until 3 AM some nights....i felt

comfortable enough to ask plenty of questions and the site members were warm,

caring etc...even on personal family issues that really had nothing to do with

apraxia..like the death of my husband..nothing was off topic and it was a place

i needed to come to everyday to read about older kids that had made it...at the

time it was Khalid, 's son that we questioned....and that is also when

posted all of the stories on the results of the Pro-efa...i originally thought

that she owned Nordic Naturals...LOL

We still are not done with speech therapy--although Children's Hospital

has just released them...which I couldn't wait to hear, but makes me nervous!!!

There is that light at the end of that long, dark tunnel--but you don't have to

do it alone...i have made many friends on this site and we talk off the site and

compare notes, suggest ways of doing things, vent, laugh, etc etc..... kathy nj

[Guest guest]

Thank You for all that info... I'm trying my hardest to be strong, my son's

birthday is in March the big 6, and still not chewing his food trying his best

to talk, but i'm really nervous about next year in Kindergarten, had him stay

back an extra year in pre-school and it did build his confidence... Trying to

stay focused and upbeat, so it's good to hear your progress..