I have to brag a bit.....

That’s great news! And very encouraging, too!

Janis

How wonderful for you and him! And how encouraging for the rest of us. My son is doing well too but middle school looms ahead. I must say it frightens me and I am encouraged by how well your son is doing.

Beth

Awesome.

Its so nice to hear about success here!

Thank you for the wonderful post! It is so nice to hear the good news.

Barb

What is he misarticulating? Does he run his words together? Does he clutter his thoughts? Does he stutter? What is he doing?

Marycas,
That’s awesome!!!!!! What a wonderful accomplishment. It’s also very encouraging for the rest of us. Thanks for sharing! :-)

Patti-

Officially, he continues to work on R and TH; the SLP at this school said she sees him getting TH soon but R is still a struggle

yes, he runs his words together-has never stuttered. Has those ‘mis-speaks’ of ’ up seven ” instead of “7up” but far less than before. Subs in words that are similar sounding but not the correct meaning(cant think of an example)

Multiple syllable words that are new take multiple repetitions to learn to say as in “Bourne SUPREMACY” A tutor taught me to have him build back and its very effective but, at 13, just plain embarassing

He uses low volume and pretty much doesnt move his lips. Now it looks like a teen mumble thing but he has ALWAYS been like this

We frequently need to ask him to repeat and difficulty ordering in restaurants tells us that it’s not just family who struggles!!!

He will not read aloud at school even though his reading is certainly adequate to good now. He says “my voice is too soft”

No one ever said “apraxia” but I wonder.

Any thoughts?

Im thinking an official dx might allow insurance to pick up the cost but no one has ever said anything ‘official”

Has anyone said anything about his possibly having a tongue thrust? What about his orthodontist has he mentioned anything about the position of his tongue? Another thing is he could be “cluttering” and this is seen at times with kids and adults who have ADD and other neurological issues. So he is still working on R at 13? Is he having problems with vocalic /r/ i.e., with words that have ir, ur, er in them? Is his initial /r/ ok?

Here is a definition and sample of cluttering that I clipped off the web..

Cluttering is a speech disorder that in many ways is similar to stuttering, but is actually much different than stuttering. It is most often described as a “mild stutter,” or that the person is nervous or doesn’t know what they are trying to say.

The unique aspect of cluttering is that the clutterer typically does not know that they are cluttering. So, probably most people who will be reading this will be friends or family of clutterers, because the clutterers themselves don’t think that they have a problem.

The best way to tell if someone has cluttering is looking for excessive disfluencies. Disfluencies are:

a) Repetitions (“I will..I will…I will…go to the store”),
b) Interjections (filler words like “uh,” and adding seemingly random words and phrases in the middle of other thoughts)
c) Revisions (“I’m going for a…to Store,” crossing out a thought, and replacing it with something else)

Examples:

Cluttering: “I want to go to the st…uh…place where you buy…market st-st-store and I don’t have muh-muh ti-ti-time money.”

Stuttering: “I want to go to the sssssssssstore and I don’t have muh-muh- muh-muh-money.”

My son apparently clutters. He tends to repeat short phrases or a few words within a thought. Sometimes his sentence changes before he gets it all out. I picture it as a buffer between his brain and his mouth getting filled up, and the words keep “playing” until the next trainload of words can arrive.

is often seen in kids with executive functioning issues. They have problems with organizing their thoughts and often they speak without thinking or planning on organzing what comes out of their mouth. So that is why they have these false starts, and it appears to be “stuttering” on the surface but they don’t have the “tension” in their mouth with trembling and the negative feelings and attitudes about their speech that I have seen with people who are true stutterers. The clutterers are unaware that they have a problem, they could care less about how they talk, they usually talk rapidly, and in spurts. It is amazing to see the difference between the people who stutter and those who clutter.

Interesting. I ‘ve assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that it was more of a retrieval issue. Hadn’t considered it a planning issue. Well, we finished a new neuroppsych. last week, so I’ll be sure to ask the evaluator what he thinks.

How interesting. I wasn’t quite sure what cluttering was. My son repeats sometimes (or will “get stuck” on phrases he hears from T.V. or the radio. The latest one is “And guess what?”….”we’re nice people too.” And this one’s kind of weird “E-I Bar-bie, E-I Bar-bie…”) It’s sometimes kind of irritating, but more then that I’ve wondered why??? I used to think it was humor or maybe he just likes the sound of the words. The older he gets the less he does this (now he’ll maybe repeat these phrases a few times on a day, or over a week). Maybe it’s like someone who has a song “stuck” in their head?

But I had wondered if this might be related to cluttering or some other neurological glitch. Patti, speech is soo fascinating! I’ve even started becoming more aware of my own language “quirks.”

some kids in the spectrum have what I call video talk. They repeat phrases, words, and songs that they have heard in video’s or music verbatim, matching the stress and intonation. I have one kid who says…in Dora the Explorer’s voice…”You did it, you did it”…whenever he does something he is pleased about. It is his way of communicating to me that he is happy. :lol:

Many youngsters are hypersensitive to sounds and words and occassionally things irritate them and they want it quiet or they want to hear the same thing over and over again because they are fascinated by a song or phrase. For instance the phrases your son is picking up are probably things he likes to say or how they sound. It is hard to say without seeing him in action.

…those of us who are in love with the sound of language…not to the point of disorder, but some of us are more susceptible to that. Picking up language or phrases, voices, patterns of speech, accents, for the ‘music’ of them. We do it on purpose, though, so maybe that is not the sort of thing Patti sees professionally…but I do that, too…pick up a character phrase and use it myself…in an appropriate way — with intonation and as much mimicry as I can muster…’You GOT IT, Pontiac!’ is one I’ve used for a long time…I think that slogan is pretty old — but my cubs love it. I do my own silly voice for it, and it adds to the cameraderie I want to build when I’m helping a kiddo who has been struggling with something. If I think of it, that is usually WHY I do it…to add interest, to embellish, to make someone laugh…though I don’t ‘forethink’ to do so, I’m just explaining something I never really paid attention to until now…

I’m reading a poetry handbook right now called ‘All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing’ that focuses on pentametric poetry…and I agree with that title…

Maybe another of those cases where the talent and the disability are somehow related? I do so agree that the whole business is fascinating!

sorry, that should be IAMBIC poetry! Now you know why I’m reading that manual…some learn about poetry and then write it. Some write it, and decide later to learn about it! Some of us just don’t fit the usual mold…! Have always loved poetry but could not LEARN the terminology of poetic criticism and analysis — but I AM determined! My, it is so much easier to be flawed in your forties than it was at age 12…!

Well that’s interesting. I’ve had varying opinions on just how much my son fits on the spectrum. The most recent doctor felt he was too social to be classified as HFA. But this would be one of those traits that resembles a spectrum attribute. Patti, “Video Talk” would be a good way to describe it. And my son does recreate the sound and inflection too. (Often surprisingly good!). He also has a good sense of what’s funny and will often latch onto things that are humorous. And yet, sometimes I can see how it’s a sound he’s drawn to.

Interestingly, he does seem to have some musical abilites. Another thing is I have an M.A. in Creative Writing with an emphasis in poetry so maybe there’s a genetic sensitivity to word sound?

One thing I’ve wondered is if sometimes kids latch onto things like this because there may be a weakness in an area and they are unconsciously performing a type of self-therapy. For example, my son had motor planning issues as a toddler and he’d repeat movements and physical situations (climbing up a set of stairs) over and over (almost obsessively) and it actually seemed like he was creating his own therapy.

Does this make sense?

I have Meniere’s syndrome. I make myself listen to the same song and read along with the lyrics until I can decipher and make sense of what I hear. I perform my own Aural Rehab that way. I can’t watch movies without closed captioning or an ALD. I have become very visual to make up for auditory processing deficits.