Month: October 2006

Apraxia and Attention

By Pam Marshalla

Q: My six-year-old daughter has oral and verbal apraxia and developmental coordination disorder. She has a difficult time keeping up her levels of concentration throughout the school day. One teacher tells me that Hannah needs to “attend” and that she is concerned about Hannah’s “attention deficit.” Do you know of any resources that would help explain how her diagnosis affects her ability to focus? Probably the best place to begin is The Out-of-Sync Child and succeeding books (The Out-of-Sync Child…

Guidance for Autism and Apraxia

By Pam Marshalla

Q: We have a 7-year-old son who has a diagnosis of moderate autism. About a year ago it was suggested that he has apraxia as well. He is completely nonverbal. We have read Becoming Verbal with Childhood Apraxia. Using some of your suggestions, he now imitates about four sounds. It is so frustrating because as soon as we get him to imitate a sound, he loses mastery of an old one – one step forward, one step back. He attends…