Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Is This Apraxia?

This is the Talking Santa App for my IPad.  It was $1.99.

Amongst all the features, you can get presents from Santa, give Santa cookies and milk, roll a giant snowball over Santa, take a picture of Santa with his friends, be mooned by Santa, make it snow and play Jingle Bells, tickle Santa, and beat him up.  Nothing says Merry Christmas like a giant snowball in Santa's face?

Santa also talks back to you.  When you vocalize to Santa, the program records your words and plays it back to you  in a kind of creepy "Santa" voice.

I shot this video of J-man "talking" to the Talking Santa Program on my IPad.  I originally shot it because it was cute... he clearly had learned that it made noise back to him... but then after I watched it I had to wonder:

 Is he actually talking to Santa?





 If I listen closely, I swear I hear a few words... or vocalizations that come close words. He waits for Santa to respond... and then responds back.  And when he adds the gestures, it makes me even more curious.  He will often "talk" to us like this... strings of sounds, often vowels, that have a slightly conversational tone to them.  It doesn't always feel like it is directed to us.  We do get quite a bit of directed one-word speech, usually related to a particular request.  But could this type of vocal play actually be his attempt to 'talk' to us?  But that the words allude him, or he is unable to even form them?

Is this apraxia?

6 comments:

Michelle said...

I'm not really sure if it's Apraxia but it sure sounds like J-man is trying to say something. My son does a lot of vocal sounds like that but they don't come close to forming words. He's diagnosed with high functioning autism so they would fall into the category of vocal stims. I think J-man is forming more words than random sounds even if they don't come out as words.

Leightongirl said...

It really seems like he is. Did you show this to the speech therapist?

Pia said...

I mentioned it today to our speech therapist, and she is going to check it out. I am interested to hear what she has to say...

@ Michelle: I think I might need to do a little research into the differences between vocal stim, social sounding, etc etc... I am very curious about the differences... if I find out anything interesting, I will let you know! :)

kkayon said...

Hi, Ive just found your blog and spent the last week or so reading every post, its great. Do you have an email so that I can send you a longer message? I tried clicking your email button but it doesnt work. Thanks. Im 16 and have Apraxia too.

Pia said...

Hi!

My email is pia.prenevost @ gmail .com I'd love to hear from you!

:)

Fields said...

It looks like he is really engaging with you and the Ipad! =)

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