Has anyone been to Hammer?

[Guest guest]

Has anyone been to Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh to see the apraxia

specialist (an slp), Hammer? Another parent just emailed me about

how much he helped her child. Any feeback is welcomed. Thanks, Carolyn

[Guest guest]

Hi,

I have not had my child seen him but I have heard good things about

him. I would have posted earlier except I wanted to wait until after I

attended his workshop this past Friday. I would like to share some of

the information I gleaned. This workshop was geared towards SLPs but

parents were welcomed.

In talking to the SLPS he presented a powerpoint slide where he talked

about the SLPs gathering information before determining if the child

has apraxia.

What does my CAS assessment include?

*for most young children, most is informal

* formal test resources available

* get in-depth parent information

*investigate other apraxic features (i.e. limb apraxia)

* look at nonspeech oral skills

* concern for misdiagnosing

1. nonverbal child

2. Dysarthric child

3. severe phonologically disordered child

4. confounding diagnosis child (he explained this as a child that

has other needs or multiple issues that require a formal diagnosis that

can only be made someone else other than the SLP. The examples he used

were autism, etc.

The next slide was a statement that said " Unfortunately, pure apraxia

of speech is rare! " He said that apraxia is usually mixed with

something else such as sensory issues, down's syndrome, and so forth.

He talked a bit about how a lot of apraxic kids become non-risk takers,

but some kids think everyone understands them and take lots of risk. I

felt that this applied to my daughter who becomes a non-risk taker when

it comes to doing things that require her to use her mouth such as

speech and blowing musical horns etc.

He also shared a 3 columned-chart that compares the differences between

childhood apraxia of speech, dysarthria and severe phonological

disorder (again this chart geared for SLPs but I found this very

useful).

Very useful info was that he stated how CAS therapy differs from

Articulation/Phonological therapies

***Motor learning theory should drive our treatment of children with

CAS (11/6/07 ASHA LEADER).

Most importantly, he states that " no single program works for all

children with apraxia. Therapists must individualize, and be flexible

and look for serendipous learning opportunities. "

He showed lots of video clips of his clients, all kids ranging from

ages 2 to 12, and their successful progress over several years.

He seems to be a warm and personable guy. If you can get your child in

to see him for speech therapy, I say go for it!!!

I hope this information was helpful and useful to this group.

Lori

>

> Has anyone been to Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh to see the

apraxia

> specialist (an slp), Hammer? Another parent just emailed me

about

> how much he helped her child. Any feeback is welcomed. Thanks, Carolyn

>