My sons best friend in prek - their speech went from completely unintelligible to amazing within a year of speech therapy. At 5/6 you’d never know they had an issue.

I have 3 children with apraxia. My oldest is 16 and 2 grades behind because I listened to family and was in fear for his safety due to his inability to speak. I did take him to Melmed Institute and PHX Children's to be diagnosed at 3 but my Mother said we should home school him to keep him from becoming a victim. She herself was a teacher so I listened and came to regret her advise. I waited 7 years to have our second child; another boy he will be 10 in July. I did everything opposite and started him in a developmental preschool at 3. He was on an IEP in school until last year and next week he is testing for the gifted program. He still can get "lazy" in his speech but "WOW". My 3rd child is 6, she is in 1st grade and like Alexander she was placed in developmental preschool in PreK. She is like my oldest and struggles a bit more but this year she really is blossoming and I have no doubts she can be just as successful as Alex earlier. William though a bit older than his peers and doing awesome, has his first job learning to drive and taking classes to graduate "early" or enter into the fire program early. For all parents who have nightmares and are in fear for their children, keep loving them and use every resource out there, don't let fear dictate your decisions. Remember they will be okay! P.S. Omega 3 and calm child really helped through the non verbal days.

My DS is in 4th grade and doing well minus slow processing speed. He started EI around 20 months. At 24 months a private therapist suspected CAS. Progress was so slow. At 3 we switched to a SLP who specialized. We also did LEAP at UMD. We had anywhere from 3-5 sessions a week over several years. He started speaking around 3. Short sentences with poor intelligibility at 4. Longer sentences but still somewhat unclear at 5. Went to mainstream K and did ok. The teacher was great with him. He made his first friends which was huge. He was dismissed from speech at the end of 1st grade. We also did OT over the years.

Anonymous wrote:NP here. My DD was diagnosed with apraxia, along with general dyspraxia (motor coordination issues broadly). At 3, her speech was pretty far behind her peers. We did 4 times a week speech therapy until she was 5 or so. She was also diagnosed, along the way, with ADHD and, later, non-verbal learning disability.

Her ability to express herself in language was basically resolved by the time she was 6 or 7. By 8 or 9, her vocabulary was extremely advanced, and she used these words properly in conversation. Now she is 12. No one would ever suspect that she was a delayed speaker. She has some pragmatics issues -- the ability to carry on a higher level conversation, especially involving non-verbal cues or certain kinds of abstract ideas -- but nothing related to apraxia.

I remember being in your shoes. Her developmental pediatrician (Conlon) told us that the day would come when she would no longer be in therapies. I didn't believe him. It happened, though. I don't remember whether it was leaps or a steady progression, but if you keep working, your child will improve and you will put this behind you.

NP here. I am a mama of a 5 yr old with Dyspraxia and it made me really happy to read that you are no longner in therapies. Woo hoo maybe there is hope!! Thanks PP!

We had a CAS diagnosis at 20 months (no words, no approximations, nothing) and started ST right away and saw little progress for at least 9 months. we did ST 3x a week, sometimes in combo with OT, for 3+ years, stopping just before K began. That was 18 months ago. He is still not the clearest speaker, and things get slurry and mumbled whenever he’s tired. BUT he doesn’t stop talking. Ever. He was a very early reader and has an enormous vocabulary, so if someone is having trouble understanding something he’s said, he can almost always figure out a way to make himself understood. I doubt that it was true CAS, but he was considered profoundly delayed in any event. There are no other diagnoses. We put him in mainstream preschool and then on to public K without a delay or an IEP. He doesn’t sound just like everyone else, but it’s getting pretty close.

My oldest was diagnosed with apraxia of speech at 2. Had 15 words, tops, many of them muddled. Did speech therapy for about a year.

Now she's in middle school and a straight-A student taking all honors/advanced classes. Great sense of humor. Very clear, articulate speech. You'd never know she ever had a speech issue. There is hope!

Don't worry too much about K right now! He's making progress and will make more progress in the next 2 years. I agree that there's no need to redshirt, unless he happens to be very close to the cutoff, and even then may not be needed. A good K class with proper supports will likely be better than staying an extra year in preschool, unless it is a SN preschool or a public preschool with full IEP support. Agree you should get the IEP now (or whatever the equivalent is called for 3 year olds in your state). The IEP eligibility determination should be easier for K if you get it now.