When I was a child growing up with Verbal Apraxia (CAS), I had a great amount of difficulty with reading, writing, and spelling. The reason for this is was because I couldn’t pronounce the words yet. If I was unable to pronounce the words, how was I going to be able to read or identify them? In my mind, I would write down how I said the word. Going further, if I did not know how to spell the word, I would write whatever made the most sense to me. So for example:
The world “School” I would spell “Kyozt”.
I could understand everything that was being said to me, but while trying to read course material; I was unable to identify the words or sentences. The reason why is I was unable to articulate them. I would get very overwhelmed because other people were able to read this- but I was able to yet. I had some classmates tell me I was just “goofing off” when I wasn’t, I didn’t know how to read or write yet.
However, once my Speech-Language Pathologist worked with me, it made a world difference. We first worked on identifying each letter and what sound it made. Then, we would go to different words. We would sound out each letter in the word until I could identify and pronounce what the word said. Whenever we worked on a few words, we would combine those words into sentences. We worked at my own pace rather than trying to work at the pace of others. My work in this did take a year because of the difficulties. However, once I picked up on it, I excelled at reading and spelling.
However, it doesn’t stop at childhood. As we know, Apraxia is a lifelong disorder. As an adult, I can still spell out words about how I pronounce them. As an adult also, my brain has trouble connecting to the words on the page. I can get lost in the paragraphs very easily. To avoid this, I read out loud which helps me tremendously. However, after so long, I can experience mental exhaustion as a side effect of my Verbal Apraxia.
Now, to dodge this, I listen to audiobooks. With this said, it may not work for everybody. But I am an auditory learner.
If your child struggles with reading, writing, or spelling; this strategy may help them. However, there are now many programs available for your children when it comes to these topics.
If your child struggles with these different areas, for accommodations, I personally received:
1.) Having test materials and answer choices read out loud to me.
2.) Having books and other course materials read out loud to me.
3.) I also had an interpreter inside of the classroom with me if any difficulties arise when it came to these different fields. Also, to translate what I had to say to other people.
I really hope you found this post insightful. I enjoyed decorating the picture. The pictures are me around this school age. 💙
Love,
Jordan Christian