Struggling to speak

Published 10:48 am Friday, August 29, 2008

Three-year-old Nathan Tzvetcoff had his first words much like everyone else: he could say “mama,” “dada” and “no.”

Beyond that, however, everything seemed to stop.

“He could do the basics, but anything else, he just couldn’t progress,” his mother, Sheri, said. “He knew what to say, like ‘cup’ or ‘juice’ or ‘dog,’ but he just couldn’t verbalize it.”

Specialists from the Edmonds School District informed Sheri and her husband, Andy, that Nathan had a form of vocal dyspraxia, known as apraxia of speech, a rare neurological disorder that affects speech at a neurological level.

Essentially, Nathan is fully capable of understanding what he wants to say, but his message gets lost in translation as the brain struggles to articulate sounds through the mouth.

The cause of apraxia of speech is unknown. Some reports say that minor head damage while still in the womb may be the cause, but there are several cases where the child was completely unharmed.

“Sometimes, it would be like he speaks, but his mouth doesn’t even open,” Sheri said. “We got to understanding it, but for others, it would just be like him humming something.”

Treatment for Nathan included time at the Alderwood Early Childhood Center in Lynnwood, where he received class time with children suffering from other forms of developmental delay, such as epilepsy, Tourette’s syndrome and varying forms of autism.

The Alderwood center works with children diagnosed with what’s considered a “developmental delay” disability, regardless of severity, including communicative, motor, cognitive and adaptive skills.

“We’re in our seventh year at the Lynnwood location, and we’re assisting between 200 and 250 students right now,” program director Dennis Burkhardt said. “We use three to four classrooms and also do everything to provide one-on-one assistance for the kids.”

Included in the one-on-one time with children are therapy sessions catered specifically to the child’s needs. Nathan, while attending preschool three times each week, also underwent speech therapy in group settings.

“We prefer to use the classrooms as a starting point and go from there to give a more meaningful experience,” Burkhardt said. “A lot of what we do isn’t just sit with a pencil and paper. We encourage a more hands-on approach; many more fun opportunities.”

Some examples to treat apraxia of speech include playing with items and trying to speak out the word one syllable at a time to eventually piece them together, or pointing to a letter in the alphabet and trying to develop the sound in a word.

“The basis of it all is in federal law; we must provide for children with disabilities,” Burkhardt said. “I think this program started in the mid-’70s at the Maplewood center, and if I recall, the district started the program before federal law required it.”

As for success in the program, Nathan is coming along very nicely. According to Sheri, he can complete sentences, minus a word or two, and he’s beginning to talk over the phone.

“I was brushing his teeth one time and he almost spit toothpaste all over me because of how much he loved playing in the water earlier that day,” she said. “It’s exciting for me because he can’t wait to say things sometimes.”