Dyspraxic Adults

Hello, I am looking for advice please.

My sister who is a teacher (including 50% s.e.n) has always raised concerns about my 2 boys speech. She has urged me to seek assessment as she has been told that kids speech development is complete my 14 years old and it is hard to change after this.

Both my boy's had delayed speech, my youngest so much so that he was seen by a speech therapist a couple of times - but I was happy to continue working with my lad independently at home, so asked for discharge from speech therapy. Both boy's were just about intelligible by the time they started school.

My youngest is now 9. His friends say he sounds like a dalik. He really doesn't sound that bad, but he does speak in a clip way, separating words to some extent and sounding quite monotone and loud! He also has a way of breaking words up quite often e.g. 'beaten' becomes 'beat-ten'.

My older boy is now 12. He had similar speaking traits when he was younger. I think he sounds okay now, but my daughter complains he has an annoying habit of clicking his tongue or smacking his lips between words quite often (I haven't noticed) and my sister says she finds both boys speech hard to follow and delayed compared to children she teaches of the same age.

On the other hand, neither of my boys teachers have mentioned their speech and husband doesn't think either of them have a problem, even though I can hear my youngest speech is a bit odd. Also, my father had a stutter as a child and grew out of it. I had delayed speech too and difficulty with word pronunciation; I struggled with pronouncing 'animal' and 'cinema' even into my 20s. Now into my 40's I still get occasional pronunciation block, but this hasn't hindered me taking on a job that requires complex verbal communication.

I would really appreciate your thoughts:
Are these speech traits typical of verbal dyspraxia?
If so, are there any exercises we could do at home that help improve pronunciation and fluency?
(Or online information or videos that explain?)
Do such mild speech problems need assessment? (My family have had other health problems and I would like to avoid formal healthcare if at all possible).

Many thanks.

Hi there

Have you asked your sons how they feel about their situation?

Not sure it's something that young lads would necessarily want to do but perhaps singing or acting/drama. I must admit being forced to see all manner of medical experts was never my favourite thing. Kids seem to home in on differences they notice in their peers and I sincerely hope they haven't been too affected by bullying?

Most of the provision for dyspraxia support seems to be for youngsters and I guess your sister is concerned that if they need support you start applying/pressing for it now so it's in place before they do their exams. I can understand you might be reluctant to have labels attached to them. Have you specifically asked their teachers if they think it is/could be an issue?

Sorry can't help a lot was 20+ years ago that I left school. Hope someone else here has some more useful ideas/advice.

Hi Tom

Thank you for your reply. Yes I have talked to my boys about this and they aren't bothered - my eldest doesn't feel he has a problem and the youngest was a bit concerned in the past, but not now. He certainly doesn't feel bullied and he is especially sociable. When I've raised it with their teachers in the past they have always reassured me that their speech is okay.

I did some ringing around today and I have decided to arrange an assessment with a private speech therapist who has a special interest in children who have difficulty forming words. It is pricey of course, but she has reduced the rate to see them both at once.... I feel it will be worth it to establish if there is a problem we should be addressing.

It will be interesting to see what she makes of their speech.

Thanks for your support.

Hi again,

I thought I would just feedback on the outcome of the speech therapists assessment. She assessed both my son's (age 9 and 12). She said both do have unusual traits to their speech, and some of them are typical of dyspraxic features, my youngest more so than my eldest. She pointed out quite a lot of speech traits which affect the clarity of their speech such as not being able to form certain sounds, breaking speech up instead of running words smoothly into one another and words themselves being said in 2 parts. Also not being able to pronounce random words that are otherwise well rehearsed (my older son had trouble say 'alien' even though he's managed it lots of times before.... he's just mad about Alien vs predator at he moment!)

But she was also very interested in the hearing problems that out family have: that is, our auditory hearing when tested is perfect, but we all have trouble hearing when there is a lot of noise about. This is typical of an auditory processing disorder and my dad, myself and my two boys all struggle with this problem, and coincidently all of us have had early speech problems.

The therapist says this is unlikely to be coincidence and it is very likely that our hearing problems are linked to our speech problems. For that reason she recommends addressing the auditory problem. She has some CD's that are designed to help the brain strengthen it's ability to process sound and she will send me details.

I am still waiting for the written report with the details, but it was certainly helpful to hear her clarify the issues and give us some pointers on how to move forward with some of their issues.

Thanks for your thoughts Tom - so helpful to look at it from all angles!