Natural Living

Living with Autism

Support, understanding, encouragement...

Apraxia:
One of the more challenging aspects of autism is when it is complicated by apraxia of speech. Apraxia is a motor planning problem that makes it difficult for a person to speak. They may very well be thinking the words that they want to say, but the connection is lost somewhere between the brain and the mouth, and the words never come out. Often apraxia is diagnosed without a co-occurring diagnosis of autism. However, cases where apraxia accompanies the autism diagnosis are far more common and far more complicated as well.

Children who only have apraxia at least have the desire to speak. Therefore, therapy can be much more productive because most will be more co-operative than children who have autism and apraxia. Therapy can and must be done with the non-verbal autistic child if there is ever hope for speech. Their brains need to learn the necessary motor planning patterns to form and execute words. Children with autism are usually visual learners, and they tend to learn best with repetition. You will want to find a speech therapist that has an extensive background in apraxia and autism. (Believe us when we say they are not easy to come by!)

If your child is in school, then you will want to push for the maximum allowed amount of speech therapy services per week. Usually this is only one hour or so in the public school systems, so try to arrange the I.E.P. so that the time is broken up into three 20 minute sessions instead of one 60 minute session. The repetition is important to teach new sounds and words. In addition to school speech therapy, you will want to design an at home program for your child with apraxia as well. For some ideas on creating a home based apraxia program, please see the following pages:

You will need to implement your home program as early as possible, and practice it daily. If time allows then practice multiple times a day to keep the information current in your child’s mind. If you would like to learn more about apraxia then you can visit the following site which we have found to be a good resource: www.apraxia-kids.org

Teaching your child an effective communication method as early as possible is the key to lessening frustrations with the non-verbal and severely speech delayed child. We know what it is like when you just cannot communicate at all with your child, and it is extremely frustrating to say the least. We have done three very important things in this area over the past few years, and we want to share our success with you.