Up, Up, Up!

As soon as Caitlin was suspected of having apraxia, her speech therapist began a program created to help develop speech for children with Apraxia.  It was created by a woman Nancy Kaufman out of Michigan and is called The Kaufman Speech to Language Protocol. 

Here is what is say on the website about it: 

The Kaufman Speech to Language Protocol is a way of teaching children with apraxia of speech the easiest way of saying words until they have increased motor-speech coordination. They are actually taught the shell of words without including too many of the complex consonants, vowels, or syllables which make a word too difficult to even attempt on a motor basis.

This teaching method is a reflection of how young children attempt “first words.” For example, the word “bottle” may begin as “ba,” progress to “baba,” later becomes “bado,” and eventually, “bottle.” From the very beginning of infant speech, there are very few “whole” words pronounced. The K-SLP gives children of all ages a way to attempt difficult words using word approximations, and refining and reinforcing these attempts toward whole target words and phrases. It is a systematic approach and one that has been an extremely beneficial, logical, and an efficient way to tackle developmental apraxia of speech.
Other methods are also integrated in the K-SLP that have been successful with adults who have lost the ability to speak. Many of these techniques have to do with the way in which the child learns cues to remind them how to say the word. The combination of these techniques comprise the Kaufman method!


Caitlin's speech therapist began with the vowels because the vowels are the "core" of all words.  There were only two vowel sounds Caitlin needed to learn: short i (as in milk, chicken, chip) and "aw" sound (as in water, waffle, dog).  So for the first 3 weeks, Caitlin worked on these words daily.  So take for example the word "milk".  Below is ane example of how the session sounded.  ST is speech therapist.  C is obviously Caitlin.  And "da" is the sound Caitlin uses a lot when she doesn't know a word.  She has a few fall-back sounds that she uses for EVERYTHING so da could be milk, dog, bed, car, etc.

ST:  milk
C: da
ST: mik
C: da
ST:  mi
C: da
ST: i
C: i
*Insert crazy cheers here
ST:i
C:i
ST:i
C:i
ST:mi
C:i

So basically, as you see, you start with the whole word.  Then, you begin to break it down into smaller and smaller parts till Caitlin gets it...then practice it...and then build it back up again!

Caitlin was able to get all the vowel sounds after about 3 weeks, so then her ST introduced the "m" sound.  This is a sound we thought she'd get early on because she's been signing more and milk since she was 12 months old...but it never came.

We quickly learned with Caitlin (as with LOTS of kids with Apraxia) that she was able to get "m" at the end of a word first.  So for example, she can't do "more" but she can do "am", "I'm" "um", etc.  So we worked and worked and using a visual technique (zipping her lips) to help her remember to make the "m" sound.  We've been doing this for about 5 weeks now and are starting to see some progress.  While she still doesn't use the "m" sound at the beginning of words on her own, if we cue her, she's able to do it with a long, drawn out "m" sound.  So, for example, the word "moo" is one we've been working on.  She used to go "goo" and now she goes "mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmoo" with a visual cue reminder.

She's making strides every day!!!!  Speech development for kids with Apraxia is a very slow moving therapy.  We literally do the same thing every single day.  But we are seeing the rewards, so we are motivated and are sticking with it!!!!!