My son is 15 years old. We found out about his apraxia when he was 13, but has been aware of his severe speech disorder (he didn’t talk so anyone could understand). There are 3 major thing that has helped him:
1. Communicating Partners Program by Dr James MacDonald. His way of helping my child has made him social and interested in communicating, imitating and never giving up on communicating. That has helped him in doing a lot of practice at sounds.
2. learning another language. At the age of 5 we moved from Sweden to USA for one semester and he went to regular kindergarten. Learning English made him take a really good leap in speech even in Swedish. I cant explain why – maybe speech-center in the brain got a real good kick…
3. As a teenager we started with The Nuffield Centre Dyspraxia Programme modified to fit him. We might had been able to start a little earlier – but our son would not had the motivation before age of 10.
I do think inclusion has played a major part too as he is surrounded by talking peers that include him all day. If he would have been in the special education class recommended for him, non of his classmates would have talked. That would not have encouraged him to do so.
We have tried things that was a waste of time too, most so TalkTools (ORAL PLACEMENT THERAPY). This was a requirement from the SLP – without going through that program we would not get any help so we did 5-6 times a week for more than a year – no effect whatsoever for my son. This might be good for others though.
We have never given up on his speech and never will. That means a lot of fighting against those that are suppose to help – because they give up to easily.
