Resources For Parents of a Child with Apraxia
Jenn Soehnlin
Friday, November 25, 2016
Apraxia of speech is a motor speech disorder that affects a child’s ability to talk. A child with apraxia knows what they want to say, but cannot figure out how to get the lips, mouth, and tongue to cooperate. It requires intensive and frequent speech therapy for a child with apraxia to learn and practice how to talk properly.
My older son has apraxia of speech. My younger son has a diagnosis of autism that includes a speech delay and articulation issues as well. When I wasn’t running my boys to a million therapies every week (or so it felt) I was devouring every resource I could on how to help my boys with their speech, their development, their health.
I’ve compiled a few of my favorite resources that I found most helpful for helping a child with apraxia. I hope you find a resource (or several!) that will help you with your own apraxia journey.
Facebook Groups
Apraxia-Kids Official Support Group. First of all, if you haven’t checked out the Apraxia-Kids website you need to. It has lots of helpful info for apraxia families. And they have a fantastic Facebook group that is very supportive–a place where you can learn from each other, ask your questions, be encouraged, and feel like you’re not alone on this journey.
SLP Mommy of Apraxia. Laura Baskall Smith is a speech language pathologist (SLP) who shares on this Facebook page her journey of parenting a beautiful daughter with apraxia, as well as sharing tons of encouraging support and helpful info about apraxia and other special needs.
Embracing This Special Life is a group just for Christian moms who have a child with special needs that I started. We do talk about speech from time to time, but mainly we’re all about providing support and encouragement for your special needs parenting journey and for your faith.
Disclosure: some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support!
Materials for working with your child with apraxia
Kaufman cards
These cards are expensive not gonna lie, but they’re not just flashcards, it’s an entire program to help your child produce more and more complex speech. The program was very helpful for both of my boys to get them started saying sounds and then combining them into words and then phrases. I paired the cards with a fun game or activity and my boys never complained about using these. My older son had the privilege of working with Nancy Kaufman herself for a two-week summer session and it’s incredible to see how something as simple as a set of cards can provide you with the confidence and your child with the foundation to build their speech and language skills.
Kaufman workout book
This workout book starts with getting your child to say easy syllables, and then increases the “workouts” into more complex exercises, combining sounds into words, and then basic phrases, complete sentences, and even retelling stories. I personally found this very helpful for both my boys and a lot cheaper than the Kaufman cards if you wanted to order this book on its own and use it to practice and build up speech skills.
Books about apraxia
Speaking of Apraxia by Leslie Lindsay
This is an absolutely fabulous resource written by a mother of a child with apraxia and full of great information and excellent resources to check out. This is the most thorough and informative resource I have found all in one place about apraxia, speech therapy tips, alternative therapies, navigating school and insurance, and other tips for helping your child.
Overcoming Apraxia by Laura Baskall Smith
Laura Baskall Smith is both an SLP and a mother of a child with apraxia, and so this book is packed with helpful resources and encouragement from her experience as both an apraxia mom and a SLP. She vulnerably shares about her journey parenting a child with apraxia, about supporting the neurotypical siblings, and dealing with mama guilt and overwhelm. She also shares in the victories of their journey which is very encouraging to read. And of course she shares tons of resources as a SLP who went on to specialize in working with children with apraxia. A must read!!
Anything But Silent by Kathy and Kate Hennesy
This is an encouraging read to help you not feel so alone in the apraxia journey. Kathy Hennesy writes about raising not one, but two children with apraxia, and her daughter Kate adds in stories of her own perspective and experiences of growing up with apraxia. I enjoyed this read and gave a copy to both sets of grandparents to help them better understand apraxia and our journey, and they enjoyed reading it as well.
Fiction for kids with apraxia
Not Your Typical Dragon by Dan Bar-El
Our whole family loves this book! Typical dragons breathe fire, but every time Crispin tries to breathe fire, something else comes out instead–bandaids, marshmallows, beach balls, etc. This book is great for parents and children who need the reminder that not everyone is the same, but we all are special and have gifts.
If you’re looking for children’s books that are repetitive and great for children with apraxia to read, check out this awesome list by SLP Mommy of Apraxia.
Inspirational books for mothers of children with apraxia
The Spark: A Mother’s Story of Nurturing, Genius, and Autism by Kristine Barnett
Such an inspirational read, about a mother whose child was diagnosed with low functioning autism and the school her son attended, was unable to help her son. She decided to homeschool him and focus on his strengths and interests–giving him lots of opportunities to pursue what interested him and it helped break him out of his shell and to extraordinary heights. Highly recommend this read!
Different: The Story of an Outside-the-Box Kid and the Mom Who Loved Him by Sally Clarkson and her son Nathan Clarkson
This book alternates with a fascinating chapter of Nathan’s perspective growing up, dealing with his various diagnoses, and what he remembers about his parents’ support growing up, and then a chapter from his mother Sally’s perspective. The themes woven throughout is a faith-based encouragement to love and nurture the child God gave you, and the love this mother and child had for each other despite the challenges.
Embracing This Special Life: Learning to Flourish as a Mother of a Child with Special Needs by yours truly
This book is filled with faith-based encouragement to encourage special needs mothers in their faith and special needs journey. I share my own personal stories of parenting a child with apraxia and another with autism as well as plenty of biblical truths and encouragement.
Grants for speech therapy/speech devices
We all know speech therapy is expensive. Insurance doesn’t always cover the cost, or no where near the amount of the therapy our children need. Here’s a few organizations that may be helpful for you to check out. It doesn’t hurt to apply if you qualify. :)
Small Steps in Speech is a wonderful non-profit that offers grants to families in need of speech therapy. They granted us a couple hundred dollars so that we could go visit Nancy Kaufman and get some intensive speech therapy with one of the best apraxia speech therapists. We love Small Steps in Speech!
United Heathcare also offers medical grants, and you can apply for one for speech therapy, regardless of whether or not you use United Healthcare as your insurance carrier.
Apraxia Kids offers speech tablets to families in need.
Diet/nutrition for children with apraxia
Cure Your Child with Food: The Hidden Connection Between Nutrition and Childhood Ailments by Kelly Dorfman
This book has tons of interesting information about diet and nutrition. There is an entire chapter about proper nutrition and supplementation for children with speech delays and apraxia and the use of fish oil supplementation for helping children with apraxia and ADHD. Fish oil did wonders for our boys’ speech and attention, and this book gives the hows and whys of fish oil supplementation for children with focus and speech issues.
Other apraxia resources
Apraxia-Kids offers tons of resource guides for things such as helpful apps, summer speech camps, homeschooling resources, and more that I highly recommend you check out and bookmark for future reference.
For the beginning of each school year, this is a fabulous resource to give your child’s teacher, telling the new teacher about your child’s apraxia and areas that may be affected by their apraxia.
If you’re on Pinterest, I highly recommend you check out and follow my Apraxia | Speech and Language board full of apraxia-related resources, tips, and encouragement.
And if you’re a Christian apraxia parent, check out my related post: Encouraging Scriptures For When Your Child Has A Speech Delay.
I’d love to know your thoughts in the comment section below. What resources have you found most helpful? Or which ones are you excited to check out now?