Dyspraxia Treatment For Children
Dyspraxia treatment needs to be managed by a Speech Pathologist. The earlier a diagnosis can be made, and treatment begun, the better.
A Speech Pathologist may also refer a child to an Occupational Therapist. Quite often children who have a verbal dyspraxia (where they have difficulty talking) or Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) also have difficulty coordinating parts of their body. This can affect gross motor skills (such as balancing) or fine motor skills (such as those needed for drawing or writing). An Occupational Therapist can treat this area and the combination of Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy work extremely well.
Parents often notice the signs of dyspraxia (or apraxia) when their child does not seem to be talking as well as other children their age or younger. Sometimes it is when a younger sibling is beginning to talk more clearly than the older child.
By this stage it is urgent that a Speech Pathology assessment be made.
Treatment choices will depend on the severity of the dyspraxia.
A Speech Pathologist can determine how stimulable a child is. That is, how easily a child can do a particular task with help. The Speech Pathologist will then be able to set achievable goals for therapy.
Initially the therapist will ask parents for detailed information about the child’s development, including their eating and communication. They will then find out, using a series of pictures and questions, exactly what the child is able to do and say, as well as what they can understand. Usually children with dyspraxia understand much better than they can talk. They will need to know what sounds a child can make and how easily they can make these sounds.
Parents need to get involved in the treatment
Therapy will vary depending on the individual clinician’s training, experience and philosophies. Some therapists take a very structured approach where sounds are approached sequentially. You may be given a very precise program to follow.
Other therapists may take a more holistic approach where communication, as a whole, is improved – as well as working to improve individual sounds and words.
They can show how to set clear goals, and simplify what the child is being asked to do. It is important to always be clear about what you are trying to achieve.
Motivation is ALWAYS important. Please remember that you are asking your child to do something that is quite difficult. Some even quite small children are highly motivated to want to talk better, as they find it frustrating not to be able to communicate. Others need external motivation, such as rewards. ALL children need help with motivation at times, so rewards and incentives need to be used to advantage. We all work better if there is an incentive to do something.
And we all respond to praise. Be lavish in your praise, for attempts and not just success.
Increasing overall communication skills can be very important for helping a child to function in the world. Often children with dyspraxia need to be shown how to use communication for a range of purposes that we all take for granted. A Speech Pathologist can show you how to do this, and also devise simple ways that a child can communicate without all the necessary words.
A Speech Pathologist can show you how to talk to your child so that you can improve their overall intelligibility. This is different to working on individual sounds. There are ways that you can talk to children to give them the greatest chance to copy you accurately, such as speaking more slowly and exaggerating the natural tune in your voice.
To begin to correct a small child’s inaccurate speech it is usually necessary to break it down into smaller parts, and a Speech Pathologist can show you how to do this. It would be a mammoth task for a child to begin to correct their own speech in whole sentences, so it is often necessary to take out a small part of what they have said and help them get that part right.
Articulation therapy will also be needed to teach the child how to make new sounds and how to get other sounds more accurate. Many therapists will work with shaping sounds so that they become more and more correct gradually. This may be something like the pathway that children normally use to learn speech.
You are likely to be given practise work to take home, such as pictures to practise naming. You will be shown exactly how to help your child make the difficult sounds. Usually drill (repetition) of some form will be needed. Many therapists find more interesting ways for a child to drill sounds and words, such as using games. Children (and people in general) learn more when they are enjoying themselves.
Children with dyspraxia (apraxia) often need help with the grammatical parts of speech. They may be trying to put words together before beginning therapy, or they may begin to do this when they have enough sounds that are clear enough and their vocabulary increases. When a child is at the point of often trying to join words together, or they have a large enough bank of words in their vocabulary, it is often necessary to give them practise at joining them up in phrases.
They will usually have some catching up to do compared with other children their age, and they have missed out on practise opportunities. So you are likely to be shown how to help your child learn sentence structure in a guided way.
If a child is not talking (non-verbal) when they begin therapy, a therapist may suggest ways to teach a child how to communicate without words to start with. It is very important that some form of communication, not just speech, is begun. And for some children, talking is very hard.
Therapists may recommend beginning with a form of signing, such as Makaton, which is a simplified sign language, or a picture exchange system (such as PECS) where a child hands over a picture or word instead of spoken words.
These ways of non-verbal communication not need to take the place of speech – but have been shown to facilitate, or help, speech to happen. In the meantime a child is able to start to communicate. For children with severe dyspraxia it will also help them communicate with other people, such as teachers and carers at Day Care, to make their needs known. If a child is going to find talking just too difficult because of the severity of the dyspraxia, the earlier they begin to communicate in another way, the better.
For the majority of children who are going to be able to speak, given time and therapy, this allows them to make a start and reduce frustrated behaviour. In the meantime, for example, they can say if they need to go to the toilet or ask you an important question.
Love your site Adele. it helps understanding dyspraxia so much easier.
Tania.