We knew something was "not quite right" from the time my son was only a few days old.  He didn't like to be swaddled, and he screamed when placed in the confines of his cradle, bouncy chair or car seat.  It broke my heart when night after night my newborn baby refused to be comforted in my arms.  Multiple visits to his pediatrician simply labeled him as a "fussy" baby and me and my husband as "paranoid" parents.

We finally got his doctor's attention when he started missing verbal milestones.  He didn't coo.  He didn't babble.  And finally, months after a time when speech should have come, he didn't talk.  Not one word.

Thus began the fight for our child's future.  He had hearing tests and IQ tests, assessments of his motor skills, fine and major.  He had assessments to rule things out and assessments to rule things in.  According to a very long questionnaire about his behavior, we were told it was "80% likely" that he was on the "autistic spectrum."  But then another assessment was completed and we were assured that he did not at all "seem" autistic.

Finally, at the age of 30 months, we had our answer.  Our son was diagnosed with severe apraxia of speech, a neurological disorder that impacts speech and sequencing (the ability to do things in order, like walking down stairs one foot after another).  In lay terms, we were told that while a "normal" child would develop neural pathways for new words at an extremely fast pace, our child would have to create a memory for each and every word -- being taught and remembering how to form his lips, where to place his tongue, how much air to blow out and so forth.  He began intensive speech therapy and social/group therapy (as his ability to socialize was impacted by his inability to communicate).  Additionally, we did our research and discovered that apraxia is often accompanied by a "sensory integration disorder" that presents in many different forms, but the bottom line was that his brain received sensory input in a more extreme way than others, and in our son's case, we realized it was why he didn't like to be touched.

Just after his third birthday, our son started attending a special education preschool with intensive speech therapy.  He had approximately six signs and four slightly intelligible words in his vocabulary.  Six months later, based on his progress that included about two dozen more words that were still difficult to understand, we were told that it was likely he would never obtain enough verbal speech for this to be his primary mode of communication.  We were told to focus more heavily on sign language.  The challenge was that our son did not want to use sign language -- he wanted to use verbal language even though the effort to do so left him horribly frustrated and angry.

That is when we turned to Kathleen Kenneally and NAET.  I had previously overcome severe food allergies through NAET treatments.  I had read a lot about children with apraxia, autisim, ADHD and other neurological disorders benefiting from special diets that excluded specific foods, so I thought instead of puting our son on a special diet, perhaps he could have NAET treatments to eliminate any food sensitivities that might be impacting him in some way.  However, since he was physically very healthy and did not appear to have any trouble with any food, we were skeptical about whether or not the treatments would be beneficial.

The treatments were highly beneficial, in ways we had not even imagined.  After his first three treatments, his articulation was so much more clear that his speech language pathologist asked if we were trying something new, and friends could now understand many of his words.

Our real miracle arrived after his fourth treatment, when our son hugged me for the first time in his life.  By this time we had become so focused on his speech that it had never occured to us that the treatments might have an impact on his sensory disorder.  I will never forget the feeling of those little arms wrapped around me, giving me a squeeze that assured me that our son would now have the life we wanted for him.

After a total of only 8 treatments and right before his 4th birthday, his vocabulary and articulation had progressed so much that he no longer qualified for special education, and his speech language pathologist said that if she did not know his history, she would not know he had apraxia.  His overall expressive speech ability was re-assessed -- he was now using vocabulary that ranked him "above average" for his age.  His speech language pathologist acknowledged that she had never seen such rapid increase in vocabulary and improvement in articulation in a child who had demonstrated such severe symptoms of apraxia only one year earlier.

My son now attends a "normal" preschool where he learns and plays with children who have no idea that only a short time ago, he was silent.  We will forever be grateful to Kathleen for helping our son find his voice and for helping him discover the comfort of touch.

Christina
Canyon Country, CA