Chloe's Speech

Yes, that is our cat Silver in the stroller! What can I say, it is summer, her brother and sister were napping and she wanted to play with someone!

As you know, Chloe has had issues with her speech her entire life. She started speech therapy when she was 3.5 years old, almost four and has been in it ever since. She has also attended developmental preschool through our local school district. Our local school district diagnosed her with a speech delay, cognitive delay and a social delay. She has come a LOOOOONG way over the years and has overcome so much.

This past spring we were disappointed with the speech therapy she was receiving from the school district. So we went through our insurance to get her private speech therapy. The private speech therapy has done way more than years of speech therapy through our school district has done. She loves going there and works really hard with her therapist. Friday her therapist diagnosed Chloe (with a completely different diagnosis than the school district) with Developmental Apraxia of Speech. This is HUGE!! I have been trying to get a diagnosis for years with no luck.

Apraxia is a neurological speech disorder that affects the "motor plans" of the brain. When we speak our brain tells our mouth, lips, jaw, etc. how to move to make words and sounds. When Chloe tries to speak her brain does not tell or properly tell her mouth, lips, jaw, etc. how to make the right sounds. In her mind it sounds right, but it doesn't come out right. Somehow the signals from her brain to her mouth do not work correctly. This can be especially frustrating for her when she knows a word but cannot say it, the signals to help her say it are just not there. This not only affects speech but it affects her motor skills (i.e. dance), reading, math, and language. Chloe does not have a severe form of the disorder, which we are grateful for.

We are so excited to finally have a diagnosis for Chloe. No, it doesn't mean a quick fix, she will be in speech therapy for years and will struggle with school but now we know how to help her. I will focus on teaching her sign language (she already knows quite a bit) to help her with her communication. We will continue speech therapy since that is the best help for apraxia.

Of course our sweet, beautiful little girl is oblivious to all of this. She doesn't "get" why she can't talk like everyone else, which just makes me love her more!