[Matushka]

Verbal apraxia is a disorder that can occur developmentally (in children) or be acquired (usually in adults from a stroke). Apraxia is a motor planning problem. In language development, this shows up as delayed start in talking, minimal consonant use and incorrect vowels, limited number of words and shorter than typical phrases and sentences. Very young children with apraxia will often sound like their speech is only vowels, usually "uh". The child may be attempting to speak but others may not realize the sounds are actually a word. As the child talks more, the problem presents as a severe articulation problem. For example, my daughter used to call a 'spoon' a 'fooba.' The only sound in the word that she got right was the oo. We had to break down the word to make it easier. Eventually she could imitate poon and later we added the s. I remember a little girl that I used to work with that said "ha ba da?" with perfect inflection meaning "how about that?" It is good that the speech therapist is able to identify apraxia. There should be no need to see a neurologist unless there are other concerns. The speech therapist should be able to provide therapy for verbal apraxia, just know that it will take significantly longer for progress to occur than it would if it were only a simple speech and language delay. With apraxia, the best treatment is repetition, repetition, repetition to train the brain to send the right signals. It sounds like your foster son's therapist is pretty astute, s/he'll know what to do and can teach you how to practice at home. If your fs is very frustrated, s/he may recommend the use of sign language to help him communicate while he works on the sounds. Keep us posted.