When I was growing up, attending school was difficult for numerous reasons besides being bullied. Since my speech was so limited, even beyond my childhood years, I could often not expand on speech responses that I would like. However, nobody knew this because they didn’t understand the complexity of my speech disorder. At times, automatic speech responses would come out, otherwise known in the clinician world as “well-known speech responses.” My brain had trouble connecting to the words on paper, which made reading difficult. Here’s how Apraxia made school difficult beyond being bullied. Read to learn more.
1.) Automatic speech responses (otherwise known as well-known speech responses).
My brain’s motor planning loved what it already was taught and learned. With Apraxia, you literally have to learn new words and phrases with intensive, frequent speech therapy. However, that doesn’t mean you cover the entire English vocabulary; because there are many things a person can say. When I would be asked a yes or no question, my brain would tell my mouth automatically to say yes, at times without me even realizing it. If a teacher asked me if I understood something, I would say yes, even if I didn’t. When I would realize after that I did say yes, because I wouldn’t at the moment, I would have to go back and ask for more help. Which led to confusion because they would say, “I thought you already knew this?”
2.) Reading, writing, and spelling.
Reading was hard for me even after I learned it, not due to reading comprehension issues, but because my brain has difficulty connecting to the words on the page. There’s the extra effort that has to go into it. But when I was young, I couldn’t read, write, or spell because I didn’t know how to pronounce the words yet. If I didn’t know how to pronounce the words, I couldn’t identify which letters were in each word. So, I would spell words out what I would think they would look like in my mind. In my elementary school years, this led to teachers getting mad at me; they didn’t understand, and sometimes honestly didn’t just want to give me the extra help. Whenever my SLP was able to sit down with me and help me identify letters, then words, then sentences, and most importantly, learn how to pronounce them, is when I was able to excel at these subjects.
3.) Limited Speech Responses.
Besides automatic or known otherwise as well-known speech responses, my brain would have trouble formulating more complex speech responses than it already knew; this is what can be known as “well-rehearsed speech responses.” I would say the same phrases repeatedly and sometimes intentionally avoid other words or sentences because I knew I would have trouble. For me, I don’t blame myself for developing avoidance as a coping mechanism. My brain is smart and was trying to, in the end, protect me. However, as I’ve learned, I should never limit what I have to say due to Apraxia. It’s important others have patience with me, but it’s even more important.; I have patience with myself, which is why when I introduce myself, I’ll introduce my speech disorder along with me. Never in the sense of explaining myself, but making others aware so I don’t feel the internal pressure to match my rate of talking with theirs; this leads to more understanding, less stress on me, and I can own my voice that I have worked so hard for.
Because when I was growing up, I’ve made it no secret I felt this sense of shame surrounding my Apraxia. Not more so the Apraxia itself, but how others reacted and made me think about it. I felt a sense of not belonging, being a bother, and what I had to say didn’t matter. However, as I grew up and learned to advocate for myself in college and the real world, I now own my apraxia, and I know if another person treats me poorly, it’s not a reflection of me- it’s a reflection of that person and the things that they are not taught yet. I’ll be making a follow-up post about how I learned how to advocate for my self in college when it came to my IEP, speaking in classrooms and classmates, and dealing with professors that didn’t understand the complexity of my speech; even if it sounds appealing to the human ear.
Love,
Jordan Christian