There’s a reason speech pathologist spend years and years in school! There is so much involved. The fine details of speech are honestly mesmerizing. Much of the time at the Nancy Kaufman conference my mouth was hanging open and my brain was on overload. As a parent trying to really take it all in was difficult. However there are a lot of things I was able to grasp and have already begun implementing with Luke, and It’s working!!! Nancy started off with this analogy; O.k if you have a child that has very little or no spoken language it’s likely you would start introducing sign language, hopefully the child would be able to pick up some approximations for signs. We certainly would not expect a young child to make a perfect ASL sign. But if the child makes the attempt at it, we would be very happy about the effort and would quickly learn what the child’s sign meant for that particular item. Thus the same thought should be in effect when it comes to spoken words. If a child can learn to make best approximations (to his/her ability) for words, it’s a starting point. As time and therapy goes on you can help the child bridge the gaps and fill in the missing parts! Example Luke’s best word approximation for “Ball” may be “Ba”. L’s are very hard we can fill in those ll’s later on when he gets them. Luke says “Pu-Pa” for purple. R’s again they are hard, they will hopefully come in time. Breaking down words to their simplest form and encouraging the child to make best word approximations. I love the example of breaking down the word “people”. If Luke pointed to a crowd and said “Pe-Po”, I would know what he meant. Just like I understand his signs even though most are far from perfect. That’s just one general idea, hopefully that makes a little sense.
Another great tip that is helping so much is always putting the answer in the question. To ask an Apraxic child to come up with answers out of thin air is extremely hard. Example if Luke was trying to open the door I might say “What do you want me to do?” but way better for me to say, “Do you want me to open the door” even further I would say “Do you want me to open door?” The answer to my question is fresh in his mind, it was the very last thing I said. “open door?” Then I have been asking him, ” Tell me Luke, open door?” Luke responds with ” Oh-pa do” Yes it’s far perfect but again I’m happily accepting it and praising him big time for his attempt. Nancy was talking about scripting, A lot! Helping your child write your his/her dialog. I’ve found a new passion of Luke’s, cooking! It’s a great place for scripting.It would be something like this;
“Luke, do you want to open eggs?”
“Tell me, open eggs.”
With my help and prompting he says “oh-pa eh-g” then he gets to open the eggs.
Even if I have to break it down one syllable at a time. “Oh, pa, eh, ga.”(open egg)
Then again same thing “Luke, do you want to crack eggs?”
“Tell me, crack eggs”
He says “cak- eh-ga”(crack egg)
and so on “Luke, put in”
walk him through “Pu-ta, n”(put in)
When you script over and over suddenly you will hear words come spontaneously. It must be that you are training the brain again and again until the cues fade, it just comes automatically. Now Luke goes in the drawer, pulls out a spoon, and says “ma-ma cook?” I love it!
Another helpful hint is finding the child’s to die for items and activities especially when you are doing speech homework. Naturally, Luke is much more motivated when the reward is great! So I’ve put certain things aside and made them only for homework time. Makes homework more successful and a very exciting time for him!
These are just a couple of examples of what Luke’s is working on. I would encourage any one out there to go to the conference for yourself. See the methods over and over so you can get a good grasp of it. Nancy Kaufman has conferences all over the country and even Canada! See her website for details. If you still wondering if your child even has Apraxia of speech you can send a video of your child, she will take a look at it, and she will call you back to discuss her evaluation. Also see her web site for more info. click here. If you are in the So. California area you can also see Megan McCann at Lucid speech in Murrieta. She is also an expert in the field of Apraxia, trained in the Nancy Kaufman methods, and conducting research in the field of Childhood Apraxia of speech. She sees many patients who travel a distance even just for an evaluation. She also takes questions on her website at Lucid Speech and Language.
