Verbal Dyspraxia

[stayinghappy]

Ive been told my 3 year old DS has verbal Dyspraxia. He has very limited speech, one word at a time. The things he can say are only certain sounds out of a word. I can understand him in context.

We are not receiving any SLT but we are on the waiting list. They said they will probably not start SLT until 4 as he has no other issues. He has understanding, no eating issues etc. So this would prob be when he starts school. I can not afford private sessions.

Any experienced this and do you have any suggestions on what I can do help him at home please ?

Lots of things that use his tongue and mouth muscles - licking nutella off a saucer, blowing bubbles through straws, blowing raspberries and the like - anything like that should help a bit while you're waiting on the speech list.

If it helps - my little girl was at about 25% intelligible speech (to us - less to strangers) when she started school - now fully intelligible, slightly young sounding a year later with some grammatical issues to work on - but she never blooming shuts up now!

dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Developmental_Verbal_Dyspraxia.pdf

pages 3 - 5 list all sorts of great/fun things to do that should make a difference.

HTH

I’m so glad I saw this post. My just turned 4 year old has a severe speech disorder- very similar to verbal dyspraxia but he is consistent in his errors. We get no NHS SALT as he attends a special nursery with a SALT attached. We can’t even be referred back to the NHS until he starts mainstream school and looses his support. Even then we will be lucky to be seen once every six months.
I wanted to say that we are paying for regular private speech therapy - and get DLA payments towards this. It more or less covers all of the therapy. We have seen huge progress and although we may need speech therapy for several years - I am more positive about the future for my son now. Please PM me if you want to chat about it. Regular speech therapy is the only way to help with speech disorders. Good luck x

@Sippingmytea Hello Super frustrating when the only solution to this issue is a lot of speech therapy, but the NHS can't or won't give it. Do your DS' special school do any SLT sessions during his hours at all?

I have no idea how to Pm you, as I'm on the iPhone app. But if you could PM me I'd be interested to know what age you were able to claim from and the rate. I had previously considered DLA, but when I looked online I thought at just turned 3 my DS's care is pretty much on par with others his age? I mean apart from he can't be understood by others. He is very clingy, but that is it really. I wouldn't know what would be appropriate in the claim. He goes to a "normal" preschool for a couple of sessions a week but just for a few hours, he struggles a bit. He gets upset and overwhelmed. But he hasn't been there long. They work on certain things with him a focused group of children with speech issues. This unfortunately hasn't helped one bit, but they are keen and their Senco is trying. I actually think it makes it worse for him, as barely speaks there if at all when in the focused group. He seems to be better at the free play and will use non verbal communication.

Yes - he gets several short bursts of speech therapy a week in his nursery. However, this is the only support our borough provides so come September we will be left without support and go back into the NHS waiting list. Despite the fact they know he has a severe disorder. It is appalling.
From 2-3 my son went to a mainstream nursery but they didn’t make any effort to help him. He was happy there and it helped with his social skills and following routine, but we needed to move him to get our only chance of specialised help. It’s definitely worth calling AFASIC or ICAN to see if there is anything similar in your area.
I will try to PM you later because we’ve only just been awarded DLA and it will cover all of our private therapy. Hopefully you will be able to get some help too.

It's a criminally wrong situation - and DD2 got fuck all NHS help because her understanding was good too. I got so pissed off, and utterly fascinated by speech and language disorders while researching desperately how to help DD2, that I'm going back to uni to train in SLT next year... but it's the Bank of Grandma funding DD2's speech therapy sessions - thankfully we found a lady just starting out building up her own independent business so her rates were sustainable - and it's really really helped - she's fully intelligible and just a little immature-sounding in her speech now, although we're increasingly discovering some disordered language now the initial articulation issues are worked out.

Bit that really pissed me off is it would not have taken a lot of NHS input early on to help with her articulation - it took 10 bloody minutes of a therapist explaining how to change S into SH for her to grasp it - and a little reinforcement/parental nagging for her to begin to transfer it into her own speech! Because she bloody couldn't say it - she fell into the trap of saying "he" for everything instead of "she" and that's been a bugger to get resolved as a result!

We were rejected for DLA (despite other issues such as incontinence and motor-dyspraxia) because "DD2 is well-behaved" and my fight had run out at that point so I left it after mandatory reconsideration.

Don't plan on much from the NHS though - if you make it through the assessment it's about a year wait around here and then you get allocated 6 sessions (the therapist had a right attitude on her of "what do ya want me to do about it - there's nowt much I can do with dyspraxia" and discharged us after 2) and then back to the waiting list for the next 3 months.

@HexagonalBattenburg wow good luck with your course ! It is amazing how it all works. It would be interesting to hear whether you think differently when you are through the other side. I'm going to guess at it from what a friend had said about getting her son who has ASD Private speech therapy from age 2-5. She said hardly anyone wants to work with young children due to attention span. She implied that SLT training is of one method, sound card type and young children aren't interested or are not schooled enough to focus and look at a card.

I really disagree that there is nothing that can be done with Dyspraxia. I think it's sadly the NHS approach to discharge you constantly to try to get rid.

I've sort of become my DS' therapist in the mean time. I'm sure this is an official technique. I've had some success with some of the words he loses the ending to.

So for example - DOG,
DS - Do
Me every damn time - G
DS - G ( often, but not always copies)
So this is better than me "modelling" the word Dog for him to just say Do again.
In the last week he now says Dog 70% of the time ( We have a dog)

I haven't had success with skips in the middle of words or wrong sounds yet, but it really helps him if I brake it down into syllables said really slowly. You see him listening, even if he can't do it. Or using other words to make him say the sound that he can't get in a particular order.

You can tell I'm not an English teacher or user of commas

BtW I meant to say in my prattlings. *I'm not suggesting this is an official technique in ref to finishing my DS' words if he doesn't ( because DS hasn't had any therapy NHS or private yet.)

My daughter's therapist is fab - she's done sessions with dd2 hanging upside down off the sofa without batting an eyelid!

my daughter has a rare language disorder and I am sure she has mild verbal dyspraxia too but it is only obvious when she is tired. due to a very high IQ although she is plainly impaired and affected by her problem she didn't qualify for any NHS SALT or support in school (don't get me started on that) so we did see a SALT privately. She was amazing with telling me what I could do at home to help her and therefore meaning we only paid for a few sessions and did the rest at home. Would you be able to stretch to one or maybe two sessions in order to find out what they recommend you do?

@stayinghappy have you tried clapping out syllables in words with him (and getting him to do it by himself)? It’s relatively easy to make into a game and would help him to realise that he is missing sounds

My DS1 has a lateral lisp due to Dyspraxia. It's a very difficult articulation disorder to treat. It takes a year or more of hard-work.

The NHS SALT told me straight to my face that it was an easy disorder to treat and that she had a good success rate. No self-respecting SALT would never, ever say that.

The NHS intervention consists of a TA at school doing exercises with my DS1 once a week. It's been a year, and no progress what-so-ever. Because his type of lisp needs to be treated by a SALT.

I'm very unimpressed by NHS SALT. My experience of the system is that it is a complete charade. I know people who have been luckier.

We finally decided to go private in December. It's £50 session and we only go once a month. I do the exercises at home with him 5-10 minutes a day, and since December we've corrected quite a few sounds. It is a very disheartening process, and I had moments of pure despair but the private SALT is very supportive.

Well done Hexagonal. Going for SALT training crossed my mind too!

@HuntIdeas yes he understands the clapping out and will clap the right number, but not say them. Frustrating.

@artichaut27 I understand the NHS has a limit on funds, but speech is so important. It's so hard. I do as much as possible with my DS, same as you do.