Recently our Speech Pathologist mentioned that she suspected Solomon had Childhood Apraxia. As I have researched this I am learning a few important things in regards to his treatment.
So Apraxia has to do with motor planning to articulate the sound correctly. One exciting thing that resonates with me is the use of gestures to facilitate faster learning of the sounds. It helps the students assimilate the information to give them some mulit-sensory cues that they can see, hear, feel, create with their hands. My son’s Speech Pathologist at school has been teaching him some hand signs that correspond to each of the sounds. The signs come from a program called Project Read. I have seen him already use them to help his mouth remember the placement of a sound. For example, the sign for “s” is one finger sliding up the arm like a snake. He was saying “na” to me. I said, “you want a nap?” ”No, Mamma.” Then he slid his finger up his arm and said, “ssss…nack.” That is magic in my opinion. He was able to prompt himself, articulate the sound and put the sound in the right place. Also he used the sign for “ch” like a train whistle to communicate to me that he wanted “ke..ch..up.” He put the right “ch” sound with the hand gesture in the right place in the word. This is something he has never done before. He was also able to say his dear friend Mitchell’s name by using that hand sign to help his brain plan the placement of the sounds in order – “Mi…ch…ell.” During a shopping excursion with Mitchell, we focused on that “ch” sound and sign and he was able to initiate and articulate “Ouch, Mitchell.” ”Reach” and “Ketchup.”
We created a Video Story at his school so the SLP and Reading teacher can help parents learn the signs they are working on. We filmed her using some of the signs in a speech session, the reading teacher using some of the signs to sound out words, and also the SLP demonstrating each of the signs for the letters of the alphabet. We are hoping that this will translate this important and extremely beneficial information to the parents much more effectively than a paragraph in a newsletter would. We are hoping that the parents using the same hand signs to model words in daily activities and play will result in tremendous growth in their children’s language.
