DVD (Developmental Verbal Dyspraxia) is also a neuro-based disability. This kids are commonly referred to as Apraxic kids, although true Apraxic kids are a rarity. These children never produce speech or even the basic sounds of speech. Our son has the range of sound, and some basic speech, but is severely delayed and his speech is unintelligable to strangers or family who are not around him alot. The root word in Developmental Verbal Dyspraxia is Praxis and this acurately describes Apraxic kids in that Praxis is "the ability to execute skilled movement". Motor impairment is the speech disturbance in DVD. Although we have the diagnosis of DVD from Children's hospital for Skyler, we are unsure if he has this speech impairment, due to his receptive language delays. In DVD it is uncommon for children to have a receptive language delay. The children will show a wide gap in expressive and receptive speech abilities, and Skyler doesn't have this gap. He has significant delays in both areas, and this is more commonly seen with CAPD. Apraxic Kids' Homepage Ed Chapman's Home Page

A child with Central Auditory Processing Disorder has difficulty listening to or comprehending auditory information despite having normal peripheral hearing sensitivity. CAPD may be defined as a reduced or impaired ability to discriminate, recognize, or comprehend auditory information. So basically CAPD is when the ear and the brain do not function together properly. A diagnosis of CAPD is made when there is no other reason (such as a hearing loss or intelligence impairment), for the delay in expressive and receptive language. Skyler has extensive delays in both of these areas. His testing last December (1998) at Children's hospital in Seattle put his expressive language at 2 years 2 months and his receptive language at 2 years 10 months. Since then, we have been working on his signing skills, though not as much as we need to. I am planning on upping his signing ability, by adding a half hour of sign learning time per day, beginning in August. This should give me 2 months to get him signing better before he begins pre-school. Behaviors of children who may have CAPD might include any of the following: (1) says "huh" or "what" often (2) gives inconsistent responses to auditory stimuli (3) often misunderstands what is said (4) is easily distracted (5) has reading, spelling, and other academic problems (6) has poor attention (7) has difficulty following oral instructions (8) has difficulty listening in the presence of background noise (9) has poor receptive and expressive language (10) gives slow or delayed responses to verbal stimuli, and (11) exhibits behavior problems. CAPD Parent's Page Pay Attention! Coping with CAPD

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