Verbal Dyspraxia

What is verbal dyspraxia?

Though awareness of dyspraxia is growing, there are still very few people who know about and understand verbal dyspraxia, even amongst professionals. It is defined as a rare, distinct speech disorder which initially results in the difficulty of formulating, organising and coordinating accurate movements to control the muscles of the face, lips and tongue, in order to produce clear and accurate speech sounds. This means that speech is unintelligible to both familiar and unfamiliar people. Causes of the condition remain unknown.

A speech therapist once described it to my mum as ‘having the words filed, but in all the wrong places.’

A few facts about verbal dyspraxia:

• Learning to talk is an incredibly slow process; children with verbal dyspraxia need to accurately say a word, sound or cluster of sounds 1000 times before it comes naturally.
• Children have more understanding of language than they can speak.
• Intelligence remains unaffected – people with verbal dyspraxia have average/above average intelligence.
• No two cases are identical, and challenges present differently over time.

My parents noticed very early on that I had low muscle tone and felt ‘different’ to my twin brother and so they sought professional help from the very beginning, where I was diagnosed with generalised motor dyspraxia alongside verbal dyspraxia. Despite also having motor dyspraxia and some of the other challenges associated with that, verbal dyspraxia has remained my main challenge and most prominent barrier in life. Reports from professionals from when I was little state my speech is ‘unintelligible’ out of context. A recent speech and language study I contributed to led me to read quite a lot of them from over the years, which provoked strong emotions and traumatic memories for me (though I have plenty of happy memories from my childhood. Most are remembered fondly despite this!)

Primary school

Distant memories of starting school age 4, unable to speak clearly and no one understanding what I was trying to communicate, are often upsetting and traumatic for me to look back on. For a period of time I was selectively mute, which, looking back, was definitely a manifestation of severe anxiety from not having a voice. The Additionally Resourced Centre in my primary school (ARC) was where I spent the majority of my time during the day with other children who had different speech/communication difficulties, as it provided additional Speech and Language Therapy support on a weekly basis.

Knowing exactly what you want to say but not being able to get the words out of your mouth is nothing short of soul destroying and affected me deeply. Makaton sign language was introduced to me, which is a useful tool for encouraging speech – it wasn’t a replacement; it aids communication and is often used in conjunction with symbols and communication boards. These all allowed me to express my needs, wants and convey conversational topics like what I’d done over the weekend. The ARC gave me regular, twice weekly SLT which was supported by the school. Repetition is the key to (albeit very slow) progress – I spent hours endlessly repeating and learning speech sounds both at home and at school over a number of years, which was tiring, boring and tediously slow, but it ultimately made a difference.

Wanting to be like my brother and sister, I moved to the local primary school they went to in year 5 as I assumed I would be happier there. Hindsight tells me I should have probably stayed in my old primary school, however, as I got badly teased for my voice and was very unhappy and lonely there. Questions such as ‘why do you talk like that?’ and comments like ‘speak properly’, sometimes accompanied with cruel laughter, became the norm of my time at that school.

Until I was a teenager, I didn’t have much awareness of why my speech was different. My parents had attempted to explain it to me before, but I didn’t have the insight or understanding as a child. As a result, I always puzzled over why I had to go to a different school for a number of years, why I had to practise my speech when no one else around me did, why no one could understand me etc which was very confusing for me. Making friends and feeling integrated has been a persistent struggle in my life, though it has made the friendships I have established more meaningful and sincere.

Difficulties and frustrations now

Nowadays, after years of intensive speech therapy, I have a voice that people can understand. Perhaps not surprisingly, however, I always feel very self conscious about my speech after countless occasions of being asked to repeat myself when I was younger, due to my speech not being understood by anyone. Just like typical dyspraxia, verbal dyspraxia difficulties change over time – primarily about not being able to produce sounds as a child, now one of my main challenges is processing speed. My speech will always be deemed ‘different’ and I still have associated word finding and pronouncing difficulties at times. Combined with slower processing, this causes me a great deal of anxiety in social situations, particularly when communicating with those who are unfamiliar or unaware of my speech difficulty. Considering the fact I’m always bursting with things to say and I fully desire to be sociable and outgoing, this is a major frustration for me.

Because talking has never come naturally to me like it does to most other people, I still have to make a conscious effort every day to pronounce words and sounds, which I think many people don’t realise; although I can talk without much consideration and effort to family and close friends, in certain situations I have to practise and put a lot of thought in to pronunciation and the positioning of my mouth as I say the required word. For instance, in my local pharmacy, there have been recent times of the pharmacist misunderstanding my surname as ‘ray’ so I have recently always resorted to practising the pronunciation and formulating the ‘o’ sound with my mouth before I give my name now. Minimal misunderstandings of my speech still occur, which always frustrate and upset me probably more than it should – I think I have developed into quite a sensitive person thanks to verbal dyspraxia!

I have never met anyone who likes the sound of their voice on a video recording – people often cringe with embarrassment or refuse to listen to themselves altogether. However, it is a lot worse when you have a speech difficulty, and it really reinforces to me how ‘different’ my speech is from other people’s. Frequently, I also get asked if I’m foreign because people have noticed my ‘accent’. Often mistaken for being Spanish or Italian doesn’t help my confidence!

Online support groups have proved to be very helpful for me, as they have given me a sense of belonging and a platform to express myself in writing, since this has always been stronger than my verbal skills. However, even in the dyspraxia groups I’m proud to be part of, I have still felt very much alone in my diagnosis within the community. Main topics within the groups are about being clumsy, forgetting things, spillages and difficulty with directions, a lot of which I don’t personally relate to. To date, I think I have met one other person with verbal dyspraxia, which demonstrates how uncommon it is and how isolating it can be.

Volunteering with the Dyspraxia Foundation has proved to be an empowering thing for me to do, both as a Youth Champion raising awareness and now as a Local Coordinator for the West Midlands group. Parents have told me I’ve given them hope, particularly for their children with verbal dyspraxia, which is life-affirming and has proved to be a boost to my self esteem, which used to be at rock bottom. I’ll always have insecurities and indeed difficulties with my speech and socialising with others, but since challenging myself by engaging in various opportunities and being in nurturing environments, my confidence is slowly growing.

I still find it an emotive subject to talk about and to look back on my journey.