Speech - 2 Year Old

My in-laws are in Galloway! On Feder almost to Amity.
Anyhow...I don't know the name of the program, but I do know that Ohio has a state-funded program for speech and occupational therapy. You might try going through them.

My son is 3 and has been in a special needs preschool for his speech all school year, and is doing great. Have you heard of the CHERAB foundation? It's run by a woman whose son is apraxic, and their website has many answers to questions about apraxia. They are also on Facebook, you might find them useful. Definately contact Help Me Grow (it's frustrating, they're very busy), but they can hopefully point you in the right direction, just keep on them. Columbus Speech and Hearing also offers free classes called TALK, about speech problems in youngsters. Good luck!

My daughter is almost 7 and we have that issue. We were diagnosed back in 2007 and have been in speech therapy for over 2 years now and I have seen improvement. Hopefully your insurance will cover it, just double check with them to see what they will cover and how many visits. For example mine only covers 60 visits for speech, OT, and PT...not 60 for each mind you and we were in OT and what a load of problems that lead to financially. Make sure your pediatrician when they write for the order makes it to where insurance accepts it. I'm sure they know how to deal with wording and insurance companies.
It wouldn't hurt to see other specialists, but starting with speech is a good start. Let the therapist take it from there, they will probably give stuff for you to work with at home, for example we had to work alot with rhyming and really making Lulu use her words. Of course mine also is autistic and so we do other things and had lots of other evals for other things. But we started with speech first because I needed to be able to communicate with my daughter. As we continued, her therapist made recommendations and we got started on plan. It wouldn't hurt to get her hearing tested either, not just tested in the pedi office. If you have anyother questions, don't hesitate to ask!!!

Since you live in Ohio, children under 3 with any suspected delays/disabilities/etc. are covered by the Help Me Grow program. (After 3 your local school district is in charge.) I had a suspected speech/language delay with my then 2yr old and self-referred my son using their website www.ohiohelpmegrow.org. It is a FREE and easy process to have them evaluate your child. After they evaluate her, if they believe she could use some guidance they'll then refer her to a local agency (mine was Happy Day School in Ravenna as I'm in Portage County) and you'll visit the local agency for a more thorough eval. It sounds complicated, but it's really not. The state has less "stringent" (or at least they did b/4 budget cuts) requirements for a delay..that is schools usually require that the child be 2.0 standard deviations away from the norm, while the local agency may only require 1.5 (this is determined from their testing.) Anyway, before you go through the hassle of trying to find a private speech therapist and getting your Ped. to write the exact "prescription" for the therapy so that insurance covers it, please please PLEASE use this wonderful free program offered by the state. Worse case they won't be able to refer you to a local agency but you'll get more pointers from the early intervention specialist at Help Me Grow on what to do. This is something not a lot of people know about, I only did because I have a PT friend who works at Happy Day. It was wonderful for my child, he ended up going 2 days a week, 9-noon to a class just for speech delay kids. Sometimes they go to an integrated preschool, it doesn't matter, the service level is great (at least it was at Happy Day!) My son now won't shut up!!! He def would have out grown it on his own, but this saved us a year of tears and tantrums from us not understanding him. Best of luck!! :)

There are other ways of communicating. Have you considered sign language? This might work well for you, you can teach her at home and give her the power to be understood.

Good luck.

All three of my boys had ear tubes, and one of them struggled with his speech afterwards. He was around 2 at the time. His voice was deep and muffled, I could barely understand him. The poor speech combined with his snoring at night prompted the ENT to remove my son's tonsils. Shortly after that his speech improved and now at age 4 he speaks normally.

I have never heard of the condition you are referring to. Is there a way to absolutely diagnose it or is that their "best guess"? I would continue with regular speech therapy, it could only help. I would also work on alternative ways to help her communicate such as sign language.

Good luck, hope this helps

My nephew is 7 years old and very hard to understand too. Is your daughter hyper? My nephew is hyper. He was diagnosed as be autistic. Good luck and keep me posted if you can. ____@____.com

Sorry to hear what you are going through as I have been there myself. My son has apraxia also. But if you have done most mothers do and start researching on the internet, Stop. Take a deep breath and relax. Not all children are as severe as those usually seen on the sites.At the 2 year checkup my doc said to wait a couple more months and that has been my biggest regret.

At 2 1/2 I forced the issue with my ped and we got him evaluated by a speech therapist. He was in therapy for about 6 months when we did the iep evaluation with the local school district. The phycologist there was the first to mention apraxia. I went to a local support group and just by chance a child in my other son's preschool camp had apraxia too. The other mother was able to relieve some of my fears. I spoke with our slp and she said that with our son it was difficult to make that call. We finally got him evaluated at the local Children's Hospital Apraxia clinic and we now have an official diagnosis. The one reason our slp did not want to make the call was because our son's speech was only affected. So other children have other issues such as fine motor skills and sensory issues. Some kids with apraxia are really obvious. When they try to talk you can see the muscles in their jaws tense. Again my son did not demonstate this. He does however have a monotone voice and a rythmic speech pattern and a tendency to mix up his vowel or drop constenents. When he talks he sounds almost like a robot.

Please go to a local support meeting if you can and that way you will see first hand the spectrum of apraxia. One child in the group was like my son is now a year ago. They recommend 3-5 private sessions of slp per week. Most insurance does not pay for the therapy. If yours does count yourself lucky. You will need to work with your child as well. We play memory matching games and "Where's Waldo" and picture finding games. If you work things into daily life and reinforce everything at home therapy works better.

One year ago my son was practically non-verbal. All he would say is "no," "ah" and "nee." When he was evaluated by the apraxia clinic, he had the verbal and receptive language skills of a child 6 months older, however his articulation is that of a 2 year old. He has made great strides in the last year and has only had 9 months of therapy (as we were on a waiting list through both the county and Children's Hospital),

Contact your local county early intervention program. They will at least help with the transistion to a school based program which you are entitled to when your child turns three. Contact your local MRDD program, they may be able to provide you with some services (many have a waiting list to acting early is allways best).

Check out the following link for a medical grant you may qualify for so you can provide your child with extra therapy. Good luck and I will say a prayer for you.

hi -
I see a number of kids with speech apraxia. the kids I see want to be understood/ communicate, but it can be very hard to understand them. Their ability to speech is not necessary linked to cognition (many of them are very bright). They just have a hard time getting words out (they understand what you are saying but can't say it back). the behaviors you see (e.g. yelling) occur because she is trying to communicate and is frustrated. I would validate her feelings “if she gets upset trying to say something to you – say “are you sad because mommy doesn’t know what you are saying?” ). as Dana said below - sign language is a GREAT idea (as long as she does not have a motor component of apraxia too).

Some (not all) of the kids with speech apraxia also have a motor apraxia (harder time with fine motor skills, motor planning (how to figure out how to do something without having to watch others – e.g. how to climb on play ground equipment that other 2 year olds climb on). I would keep an eye on this. If you feel that she always plays with the same thing over and over (because she knows how to do it) and does not branch out, says “I can’t” a lot with tasks, and has a harder time with fine motor skills then I would recommend getting an occupational therapy evaluation.

Some fine motor skills for 2-3 year olds include:
2 YEARS
• holds crayon with thumb and all fingers, forearm turned so thumb is pointing down
• puts on shoes, socks, and shorts; takes off shoes and socks
• can use a spoon by himself, keeping it upright
• can draw and copy a vertical line
2 1/2- 3 YEARS
• strings large beads
• snips paper with scissors
• rolls clay/playdoh into "snake"
• can draw and copy a horizontal line, circle and emerging cross

A great resource is:
http://www.apraxia-kids.org/

Good luck!

You did not mention if the speech therapist tested her hearing.
If she can say momma, daddy and no clearly, I think that if you keep encouraging her and working with her that time will help.
Have you tried teaching her some signs to help her communicate with you?
That might help with the yelling etc.
She is probably as frustrated as you are that she cannot make herself understood.
My son had trouble with consonant sounds too and I worked with him a lot and by age 4 he was doing just fine.
Just make sure that you and others always speak correctly and never repeat or reinforce the incorrect sounds that she makes.
I think you will do fine.

my son doesn't have the apraxia but he does have probs with some of his blending sounds, etc. my ped said if he doesnt start talking right than he would need to see a therapist. a lady i know had the same prob with her daughter but her daughter was more severe. i live in florida and we have something called easter seals. i don't know if you have it by you, but it's for children with certain delays. emotional, physical, learning, speech, sight, all sorts of things. but if you do have them by you they have specialists who could help out and it's the cost of daycare i believe. also we have head start (which i believe is government run so you should have one too) that my lady friend took her daughter to and it was free. you can check them out also. and look into the public schools, sometimes they offer speech classes at their sites for free. hth

A family member on my husbands side has speech apraxia, but also a bunch of other delays. Speech therapy has helped some. He also knows some sign language. Keep interacting with her. If it's very severe the iPod has a speech program avaliable. I can find out more about it for you if you get there. My one word of advice: NEVER let a professional let you tell you what your daughter is capable of let her show you!!!

hi C.
Everybody has given you really good advice!! As a speech therapist and Kindermusik Educator, I suggest you do go to speech therapy. The speech therapist will work with her and will figure out what are the techniques that will help her (not everything works for every child) and you should be ablea to participate so that you can help her at home. As a Kindermusik Educator, I cannot tell you how great I'd be for her to go to Kindermusik! With Apraxia you want to practice as much as you can so that words/sounds become automatic and singing provides that in a fun way! Find a kindermusik class and you'll see how great it will be for her!!
Good luck!! :)

V.
http://languagemusicandmore.wordpress.com

Sign language is a great idea. I remember when my then 2 -3 year old got so frustrated because he could not tell me what he wanted. He would have temper tantrums. Not too long after that he was diagnosed with speech delay. He is know almost 12 and we have done many things, including speech, social and language therapy to name a few. My sister showed me this on you tube and it is so cute and it teaches sign language. I wish I had known more about this when my son was 2. This great for all kids. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVcJHv32i18. It's called Signing Time. A mother of a deaf child put this together. My son is on the autism spectrum and has been diagnosed with PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified) which basically means he does not fit any specific diagnosis on the spectrum. He also has dyspraxia. We worked with a pediatric neurologist for most of his younger years. He saw a behavioral psychologist who did a multi facted evaluation on him so we could decide what to do for therapy and schooling. You need to find a preschool program that is designed for kids with special needs. We had a great one that we went to on the southwest side suburb of Cleveland. They worked on speech, OT, sensory issues and language issues. They also had mainstream kids in there for them to model. They had great speech pathologists there. You may want to see through your local hospital if there any programs that would benefit your child. A neurologist should know. Pediatricians are not trained for this. Mine ignored the symptoms for a year and a half until I bugged him enough. If you need any other guidance please let me know.
Pediatric neurologists in columbus

Also you have Ohio State there. Call them.
http://www.healthgrades.com/local-doctors-directory/by-sp...

My oldest had speech and I think my youngest is going to need it too. I have never heard of what your talking about but my suggestion is this. buy her sign language videos. I recommend signing time and wide eyed learning. I like signing time better keeps thier attention more. YOu also have to make her watch you when you talk(learned this from the oldest in speech) speak slowly and make sure she can see how you make the sound. YOu will emphasis the letters she has trouble with. She really needs speech for this but you will learn to do this by watching the therapist.
My youngest has picked up some words off of the signing videos. They say the word show the word show the item show the spelling which will help with reading. Mine has picked up cookie, more and ball on the videos. It will save your kid alot of fustration too. Saves alot of temper tantrums. When you talk to daddy you will sign while talking it helps them learn faster.
My theory is even if they are not deaf learning sign isnt going to hurt them because there might be a deaf child at thier school. I have several deaf people in the family so he needs to learn it anyway. good luck

Hi, C.,

My 7 yo daughter was diagnosed with speech apraxia when she was two. She was already signing by then, and could communicate everything she needed to at that point (her brother and I sign, too). But I put her in speech therapy for about 8 months (all I could afford) and she now speaks clearly enough for anyone to understand her. The only thing people can't understand is her name, because she still can't say the 'R' sound correctly, and it comes out as kind of a 'W' sound.

I suppose it depends on the severity of the apraxia. From what you are saying, it sounds like my daughter's was not very severe, because she does just fine now.

So, if I were you, I'd get her into therapy and work with her at home on whatever homework the speech therapist gives her. (I'm assuming you've had her hearing checked already and it's okay? That's usually the first step when diagnosing speech problems.) And, secondly, I agree with the others who suggested signing. Start teaching her ASL so that she won't be frustrated that no one understands her. Once she can communicate with signs, things will get much easier for her.

Blessings,
J.

C.,

If you want to be sure, then make an appointment with a Developmental Pediatrician. Call your local children's hospital, that is where you will find them. This is not a regular pediatrician, this professional will do a full evaluation of every area related to her development and you will be certain that you have your answer without any doubt. It will include a second speech and language evlauation, ENT, OT, PT, neurolgy, genetics, or anything else that he or she thinks is necessary to find out exactly what is causeing her problem. It will take several months to get an appointment, so ask to be put on the waiting list, and start therapy with the speech therapist right away while you wait. While it may not be exactly what she needs if this is not the only issue, it is your best bet for now. Do all the homework that the therapist reccomends.

I would advise you to not "wait and see" with issues realated to development. Time is the only thing you have that is free, take full advantage of her young age and get as much therapy as you can as early as you can get it.

M.