Liam Meets Ms. Bree

Yesterday was Liam's first appointment with his Speech Therapist to address the issues we've been having with his excessive drool. Liam has always been a drooler...and for the first two years of his life I just had assumed it was contributed to teething. Last year I had asked his pediatrician what he thought about it and he said that Liam was probably just not aware of the fact that he was doing it and that by age 4 he almost guaranteed he wouldn't be doing it anymore. Unfortunately it did not miraculously disappear over the past year even though we have tried to work with him without nagging. Enter Ms. Bree--the Speech Therapist.

We met her yesterday and Liam seemed to like her instantly. While we were waiting to go back and see her Liam asked a littler boy in the waiting room "Are you here to fix your drool too??" This made the Therapist laugh. She examined him and watched him play and listened to him speak. She had him try and do certain movements with his tongue such as making a kissy face, blowing out bubbles, etc. She said that he speaks very, very well but she noticed right off the bat that it appears that Liam has a type of Oral Apraxia. She says she hesitates using this term because it causes undue anxiety with parents--the reason being because Apraxias are neurologically based and come from birth. After she explained it to me I didn't worry at all--it actually made a lot of sense to me based on things I've seen. In a nutshell, Liam's brain and tongue/facial muscles aren't communicating. She said that while he tries SO hard to make a pucker face and feels like he IS doing it, his tongue isn't getting the message. I would imagine it is similar to how a dyslexic child feels when trying to read something. The "cure" for it is really the same as they treat all speech issues--lots and LOTS of exercises. Things like making the tongue move in different directions, trying to blow bubbles without spitting, breathing with the mouth closed, swallowing exercises, etc. She said basically it comes down to lots and lots of repetition and yes, even "nagging".

So far, we have been good about doing the exercises. Liam gets very excited when he is able to do something that he originally could not do but we still have a LONG way to go but as he says, "I'm working on it Mommy! I'm working on it!"