Specific Language Impairment / Verbal Auditory Agnosia

[mo4gk]

Is there anyone out there with experience in this area? My youngest son is 3 1/2 and has just been diagnosed with Specific Language Impairment / Verbal Auditory Agnosia. Well, actually the wording was 'speech disorder', but reading up on things in this new and scary world, the SLI / VAA is the accurate reflection of what condition was agreed by the professionals at a meeting last week.

It was ruled out that my DS is autistic, as his social skills and comfort are considerable though to a certain extent immature. His hearing is fine. His reading of non-verbal clues is fine. But his vocabulary is less than 10 words and he cannot understand instructions that doesn't include pointing or other non-verbal clues.

When I try to repeat words to him - e.g. reading a book and pointing at a picture of a dog, and repeating the word 'dog' to him a couple of times - he gets agitated and protests; he doesn't want to learn. He does however love to 'talk' albeit in a language noone else understands. Hi intonation is perfect and of my four children he is the one who 'spoke' earliest and most.

The doctors' recommendation was on a weekly basis to attend a playgroup for special needs children where a speach therapist is available, and possibly sign up for a portege waiting list. Apart from that they said that they would start procedures for getting him into a special needs school when he starts reception class in 2012. That's it! Can anyone tell me if this is the normal and / or best way of improving a language-impaired childs condition? Personally I am gobsmacked - this seem so little that it would be a miracle if things can improve on the basis of this. Or have they just given up on him?

Any advice on what resources you have found useful, exercises, books, games, schools, therapists will be much appreciated. It breaks my heart that my DS is getting marginalised at this early age, and the best way I can think of getting help for him now, is to ask other mothers to share their experiences with me.

My son is 14 years old and was diagnosed with Verbal Auditory Agnosia when he was 4. At the time his neurologist said that she never expected to ever meet anyone who had been born with this condition, as it tends to occur after someone has had a brain injury. My son has never had a vocabulary of more that about 10 words and struggles with English as a language - both reading and comprehension.

Through his educational psychologist he attended a mainstream school with a hearing impairment base (his hearing is OK and he can understand sounds like dog barking, etc. He is just not able to proccess words). He has effectively been educated as a deaf child and his first language is British Sign Language. He started at age 4 with Makaton and progressed to BSL.

He is now in 2nd year at High School and just picked his subjects for Standard Grades. His High School has a hearing impairment base and has a special needs school within the campus, which he accesses for the subjects he struggles in, e.g. English, Maths, Social Sciences. Academically he is doing fine. He has a lot of support at school.

Where we have found the biggest problem is with social relationships/friendships. He finds it very difficult to maintain friendships and does not like to go out himself. Unfortunately, having little or no communication makes most things that we take for granted, very difficult for someone like my son to do. There are not organised events e.g. youth clubs, in our area, that can accommodate my sons needs. Although aged 14, he is very immature (probably equvalent age 9 or 10) and prefers the company of younger people.

The best piece of advice I could offer with regard to your son, is to speak to your speech therapist and get him introduced to Makaton or BSL as soon as possible. You will notice a big difference in him when he has a means of communication. It does mean that you will also need to learn BSL. But our family went to a local college course and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Good luck

you may find this Theme Issue ?The perception of speech: from sound to meaning? compiled by Brian Moore, Lorraine Tyler and William Marslen-Wilson a useful source of information, the Table of Contents provides a useful guide

Can't thank you enough for sharing you experiences and knowledge. It makes a world of difference to know that others have walked the path before me and to learn from what you know. All others around me either don't get it, or are professionals that look at the situation from a detached and maybe statistical point of view. For a parent it is a whole life that you now have to guide and protect even more than before.

Am quite happy with the sign language part jobob, I did baby signing with my first two, and when they stopped they were using around 150 signs. Unfortunately my DS has not really wanted to do the signs much at all, and is only using signs for the same 10 words he can articulate. I will give it a new go though and see if I can get him to grasp this communication tool. Am looking much forward to start SALT sessions, as I feel so very inadequate at being a good mother and help my child appropriately at the moment.

My dd2 had few words at 3.5. She invented her own language too. It turned out that she was hearing impaired (mild-moderately now) so this is a different case from your ds, but she has recently (5.9 now) been diagnosed with a SLI and possibley APD (which sounds similar to VAA?). Basically, it appears as if she doesnt process all that she hears.

DD2 attends mainstream school and always has. Her receptive and expressive language has improved hugely since she was 3 - changes occur out of the blue in big leaps, then she regresses somewhat, then another big leap forward - the same with her schooling. It appears to me like a switch that turns on: only briefly at first, but shorting out from time to time, gradually staying on for longer times as she gets older. I'm amazed with what she can do when "on" - like being able to suddenly read much more advanced books, then back to baby books when "off". It shows, to me, that even when communication is at it's most difficult for her she is still absorbing a great deal more than what she is able to express.
The upside is that in the last 6months any leap forward results in what she has learnt sticking (like the reading now). At the same time as the progress in reading her language has improved so I'm convinced they are connected. I also attribute this to a listening skills programme (Black Sheep [auditory menory etc] via dds teacher of the deaf).
I am no longer as worried for dd as I was in those early days. There are still have concerns, but i'm lucky that school supports dd by pushing hard for outside intervention.

I know that though every SLI is different with different outcomes I hope that my dds experience gives you some feeling of relief that there can be light at the end of the tunnel.

Thank you kissingfrogs; yes your story is very encouraging to me. While all are different as you say, it is so nice to hear of cases where the has been progress on one or more fronts, and in many cases significant / life changing improvements.

On a forum in another place, there is an adult who was diagnosed as having auditory agnosia from birth and she was interested in the following research paper Aphasia, Alexia, and Oral Reading 2004 after downloading the full pdf files and reading the research review part of the paper.

Sorry to hijack here OP but want to chat with Dolfrog:

Dolfrog, I read the 'perception of speech...' link you gave and in particular the reference in it to the native language magnet model

("...The paper presents new data showing that both native and non-native phonetic perception skills of infants predict their later language ability, but in opposite directions...")

My dd was born in France and spent her 1st 6 months there before moving to Wales where she was taught Welsh at school. We couldn't figure out why this child who had significant receptive and expressive language difficulties in English appeared to have a talent for learning Welsh. Bizzare. Is it, I wonder, because a new language is taught methodically step by step whereas her native English is expected to be aquired, or (after reading the ref) is there really something in "...while non-native phonetic performance reveals uncommitted neural circuitry"?
Perhaps its beyond me to understand.

The difference is in the structure of the Welch language, orthography, and the orthography of the English language.
And Welsh has been described being WSYIWYS in terms of visual representation What you See Is What You Say.

The native language refers to the language used in the home by mothers and family to communicate with the baby, which is usually the native language of where you are living, unless you were speaking French in the home while you were in France.
All babies when new born are able to speak all languages, but as they experience the language used in their home and immediate environments they develop the cognitive skills required to process and imitate the language being used, which is community or family specific. And the cognitive language processing skills which are not developed during the early stages of development because thye are not used to process a child's native language can be lost due to lack of use. (if you do not use it, you loose it)

"Native language magnet theory, expanded" is described in detail in section 4 of Phonetic learning as a pathway to language: new data and native language magnet theory expanded (NLM-e) Which due to my own APD I can read and understand, but i have not developed a way of explaining in writing as yet.

I guess this language part adds another dimension to my current situation: both my husband and I are originally from Denmark, and have raised the children on a combination of 80% english and 20% at home. Orginally it was the other way around but my oldest son had difficulties when he started in nursery and they recommended that we increased the amount of english used in our home, so this is now the settled ratio. The children all understand Danish, but speak in English mainly. When they are around 6 they start to speak it more to the extent they can keep a conversation in Danish. I have found that the use of sign language has been really good, as that help them understand the meaning of both different languages and seperate them when they where young.

The question right now is of course if I should cut Danish out all together in order to increase the probability of my DS understanding the sounds and patterns of the language. Dolfrog, would much appreciate your take on this.

mo4gk

Unfortunately I have no real knowledge with regard the orthographic structure of the Danish language. English has evolved from so many different langauges, and it is only in more recent times that a formal and rigid structure of language has come into use as part of the needs or required rules for mass communication.
Some who have my own disability, APD, have found the language structures of Latin, and may be French useful to help us understand and use English.

What we really need to understand are the communication needs of each individual, and how we communicate with others and we explain how we perceive the world. Due to my APD I have problems with sound based communication and prefer visual forms of communication pictures, diagrams, mind maps mixed coloured fonts, and extra spacing in texts, etc, and others who have APD may use different coping strategies base on their particular set of alternative cognitive strengths to compensate for their own information processing deficit.

It is about identifying how we need to communicate, and using the option most suitable to each individual. Which conflicts with the natural human belief that one size fits all, we do not like complicated issues lol.

So you really need to identify the communication option(s) which best suite your DS now, and focus on that option, it may not be the most ideal in the long term, but may help in the short term to help gain communication confidence and basic communication abilities. The English and Danish languages both use the Latin Alphabet writing system of graphic symbols (letters) to represent speech.

I hope this helps in some way, not that easy to explain

Many thanks to all of you for sharing. I feel more at ease of the situation than I did just a few days ago. I will investigate the various routes that you have pointed out and see what my DS respond best to. Am cautiously hopeful that things will improve.