Tuesday, October 23, 2012

A Subtype of Apraxia?

We first heard of apraxia as a possible diagnosis when Sweets was less than 2 years old, but they wouldn't test for it until she was at least 2. When reading about it though, we felt like this was probably the answer to what she had. Her first evaluation said she had some characteristics that were consistent with the diagnosis, and other characteristics that were not, so they would rather hold off and re-evaluate her when she's older. We had a second opinion that just said no, they don't think it's apraxia at all. So, we thought apraxia's out, it's something else. Nine months later, we had another evaluation with a new SLP just to measure progress. This one brought up apraxia and said that's what she has, which surprised me since I thought it had been ruled out! We went for a second opinion again, and the second opinion said no it's not apraxia, but it might be phonological processes, but she can't be tested for that until she's 4. We looked up phonological processes and thought that yes, this seems to describe her better than apraxia did. Now, she's 3.5 and we went in for another eval just to measure progress. Again, this clinician says she would diagnose with apraxia. I asked what about the phonological processes possibility, and she said that she agrees with that possibility, but that she considers that to be like a sub-type of apraxia, but other clinicians might consider it a separate diagnosis. So that might explain why some of them want to say it's apraxia and others want to say it's not. Maybe it's more of a categorization issue than a diagnostic issue. However, in my google-searching on the topic, I am not finding others who classify phonological processes as a type of apraxia. Rather, they compare and contrast the two. So that part still feels questionable to me.

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