Verbal dyspraxia and communication

[ClarityVirtual]

Hi I wonder if you can help. I am new to hear and would value your assistance. My son is 7 and has severe verbal dyspraxia. He is cognitively fine and attends a Welsh school with English spoken at home. His receptive language is fine but he is very poor with spoken language. He communicates with some verbalisation, some makaton and generally manages to get his message across.

It is hard for people who do not know him to understand though and he is such a happy child who really wants to tell stories etc. In the long term, if his speech does not improve sufficiently ( we are going to the Nuffield and he has SLT support) we want him to use BSL as a means of conversation because he will be able to speak with so many more people. Education say that he is not deaf and so should use Makaton but this is not a language whereby you can have a proper chat with others. His best friend is deaf and is learning bsl but education is adamant that he should learn bsl even though the other child who goes to the same school is able to use bsl.

Does anyone on here use signing and what are your experiences please? I just want Isaac to be able to have a proper chat with us and others.

Thanks

Sorry I don't have much experience, but learning bsl is something we have discussed with various professionals. Ds is nearly 4 and has no speech, he has better understanding and a great desire to communicate, We use makaton and are looking at AAC, using an ipad app for speech,

Last year he had a hearing test which showed moderate hearing loss, and a teacher of the deaf was discussed. The local advisory teacher felt that bsl would be great for him, and talked about the whole family being taught. Then he had a second hearing test which showed a normal level and it was decided we wouldn't be eligible. His SALT said that she thinks we should stick to makaton and AAC. It is frustrating, because although we are glad that his hearing is at normal level, the bsl route did seem interesting.

Strangely I started chatting to a woman in a hospital waiting room last week, and she was a teacher of the deaf. She saw ds signing and said she thought he would be great at learning BSL. She also said that she had just been teaching a 7 year old girl who had no hearing loss, but no speech at all, I wanted to ask her how that had happened, but she was called in for her appointment!

Sorry i have no advice, but didn't want to leave your post unanswered, especially as we are in a similar position!

Hi,

There is a new Developmental Verbal Dyspraxia article on Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_verbal_dyspraxia
and there is also a new CiteULike Developmental Verbal Dyspraxia research papar library at
www.citeulike.org/group/18272/order/year,,