Jake's Journey with Apraxia

 

The Speech-EZ Apraxia Program, website states …

This app was created for individuals with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) and severe phonological disorders. It is the very first app specifically created for the unique needs of the child with CAS.

We began the Speech-EZ Apraxia Program in the Fall of 2012 and in May of 2013, my family and I ventured to Arizona to do a week of intensive therapy with Lynn and her group. Hand cues were heavily emphasized during these sessions and by the end of the week, in addition to improved speech skills, Jake was easily sounding out words on his own.

Before leaving FDH, I purchased another app in the Speech-EZ family – Target Sound Identification – in order to continue strengthening Jake’s phonological awareness skills.

Here is Speech-EZ’s description of this particular app  …

The Target Sound ID app develops phonological awareness, sound order sequencing skills, and auditory attention skills. This app increases the ability to break words down into smaller parts and recognize smaller parts in words. Being able to break words into smaller parts and recognize sounds in words is an important skill that is necessary for early reading and spelling skills. Target sound identification promotes literacy development as well as sound identification during speech production tasks. Memory also plays a small part in this task, as the child must internally hold onto the word in their mind while analyzing the sound in a specific position of the target word.

What do I like about the Target Sound Identification app?

• A child cannot memorize this app; they must learn the concept. Both the cards and sounds at the bottom automatically shuffle and are always in a different order.
• Over 350 big, colorful picture cards.
• Hand cues can easily be incorporated by the parent, which makes it a great extension of the main Speech-EZ Apraxia Picture Sound Cards.
• Allows progression of skills. Jake began this app by identifying the first sound, which was fairly easy for him because he already knew the hand cues with letter sounds so well. Then, he moved to identifying the last sound, which was more difficult for him. Once first and last letter sound recognition were mastered, we moved to random identification.
• Random order promotes listening skills. In the beginning, Jake really struggled with this part of the app. But, he came to understand that he had to listen carefully and each day this skill improved.

The article “Literacy and Children with Apraxia of Speech” by Sharon Gretz on the CASANA website states, “While there is no certainty that literacy problems will or will not develop, there is research that has shown that children with spoken language problems are at higher risk for literacy related problems.”

Before this app, Jake knew his sounds well, but after a few months of using Target Sound Identification to drill phonological awareness, Jake knew his sounds upside down and inside out.

Jake is now five years old and reading introduction is going very smoothly. I believe his success is due to the following:

• He has always had a natural love for books.
• Early intervention. He has been in speech therapy and learning the intrinsic details of sounds since he was 27 months old.
• Speech-EZ hand cues and apps.

For more information about the Speech-EZ Apraxia Program, visit www.speech-ez.com/.

Disclaimer: I purchased the Speech-EZ apps for my son. Speech-EZ provided me with a free copy of the Target Sound Identification app to offer as a giveaway on this blog. I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose and I did not receive compensation for my review. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway.