Persuade Gp to refer for verbal dyspraxia

[adrianna1]

Hi.

I have a four year old son ( he has just turned four) says about 10 words, though babbles or uses gestures.. made- up signs to communicate.

I suspect my son has verbal dyspraxia.

Ever since he was 15 months, my son found it very hard to imitate. He would rope his mouth… I spoke to a speech therapist at the time… at one of those chatter time baby groups. That it seemed like my son cannot use his tongue or mouth to say words. She reassured me saying that if my son can suck, blow, sip through straw. Then he is ok.

Finally at the age of 2 and a half my so said his first word… though round about age 3 he started to use that word inconsistently…dropping ends, using a different sounds for the same meaning. With teaching and practice..my son can now blow…this was the only mouth difficulty he had.

Again at the age of four he started to do the grope again with his mouth, or give me a confused face..looking at my mouth intensely or would just say the word "ta".

My son can understand so well…I know understanding comes before speech. But if my son can understand..why is he finding easy words hard to say?

I finally told my son's new speech therapist. She said it is just a delay and some kids just have it ( I am not convinced it is just a "delay"). Plus she said he needs to be saying more words to be referred to see a specialist.

I decided to book an appointment to see my GP, but I'm scared he will say that i should ask my speech therapist to refer as they are closely linked and know more about my son.

His also having a second re assessment of autism as the first test came up inconclusive.

What should I do guys?

Has he ever been checked for tongue tie? More severe ones can cause speech delay or difficulties and yet the tongue can look normal to the untrained eye. And most HCPs have an untrained eye I'm afraid.

Are there any other tt symptoms? eg gastric problems, feeding problems (breast/bottle/solids), sleep problems, mouth breathing to name a few.

Who do you want to be referred to? I would have thought that speech therapists are the specialist who would be best to do the assessment for this anyway

For a child to be diagnosed for Developmental Verbal Dyspraxia, he/she needs to speak quite a few words so that the specialist speech and language therapist can observe a pattern. I think that speech therapists are trained to identify some of the signs of DVD. What method is your current speech therapist using? How often does your son see her? Since when? Is it on the NHS?

In my experience, it would be a good idea to read the book 'it takes two to talk' (expensive to buy but you can get it from library), and also do a lot of speech exercises, whatever the speech therapist suggests you do and also some excellent suggestions here ( www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Developmental_Verbal_Dyspraxia.pdf ).

My son has DVD and was 'diagnosed' at 4.5, and even if I have read many books on speech development I would never venture in giving any advice on it, apart from establishing a positive relationship with the speech therapist and keep on doing the exercises she recommends, as well as many many other speech games. If you would like to I could recommend a few books, but I'm afraid to say that you are going to end up doing most of the work with your son, not a speech therapist (unless you have hundreds of pounds to spend of a private SaLT). SaLTS in my experience, focus their work on assessment of progress and on advising you on what you should do at home.

BTW, there's nothing wrong in raising the alarm with your GP. You can inform her/him about your concerns, and ask if there are anything else that should be checked (audiology, ENT, etc).

My guess is your speech therapist is inexperienced. She/he has gone for the safe neutral option of saying a delay and not taken your concern into account. I'd change speech therapists.

adrianna1 my ds aged five has verbal dyspraxia. He was diagnosed nearly a year ago. His speech therapist said very strongly that he was not making the expected progress and that he needed to be assessed for autism/dyspraxia. I am very grateful to her for referring him to a very good clinic where he got his diagnosis.

To be diagnosed, he needed to be seen by peadiatrcians, physiotherapist, neurologist, psychologist (for IQ test) and of course specialist speech therapists.

It is not an easy diagnosis to make.

My ds is very inconsistent in his speech, and to strangers, is virtually impossible to understand. Even I find it very hard to understand him. His voice also sounds very babyish. In general, ds is young for his age, still requring help with dressing, eating, still waking most nights. On the positive side he is very bright.

Have you found the FB page VERBAL DYSPRAXIA UK - DVD - apraxia - ORAL DYSPRAXIA? You can find more information there.