United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

I wanted to conduct a very informal poll about how many of our kids have speech issues and see what the connection, if any, there might be.

1. Has your kid been diagnosed with speech issues?
2. Was your child oxygen deprived at birth?
3. Did your child receive significant head trauma at birth? (skull fracture, hematomas)
4. Which nerves were impacted with your child?
5. Has your child had daily PT/OT during their recovery (daily ROM count, any amount of structured therapy/play that kids without BPI don't typically spend their day doing...)

I know that this is very unscientific but I hope some of you respond anyway. I just want to see if there is an anecdotal pattern to perhaps a cause for speech issues that might help me focus some of my own research efforts.

Thanks,
Lisa

1.My daughter is hearing impaired so speech disorder comes along with that
2.She was deprived of oxygen so she was give 100% oxygen while in NICU
3.No head trauma.
4.I think it was c5,c6 and c7
5)She had PT/OT 3x a week then it went to 2x a month then I did it at home and when I felt that I needed to do different ROM then we would go back as needed
When my daughter was 5months old she had Spinal Menengetisi so that has some to do with the hearing loss and the speech disorder

Hi:

My son is 9 1/2 year old and has a rbpi. He has a severe stuttering problem and it has been getting much worse lately.

I have a non-bpi who has a severe speech delay. At age 6 he continues to have speech issues. I did experience a shoulder dystocia with him and he was oxygen deprived (his lung collapsed sometime during the birth process...perhaps when the nurse was shoving on my abdomen?). I haven't noticed any speech issues with my bpi child...he wasn't "stuck" nearly as long and the birth wasn't as tramatic with him.

My daughter has speech issues and jaw issues as well from low tone. She has C5-6-7 ruptures. She has been in speech therapy for 2 years now and has made major improvements. She does daily tongue and jaw exercises and eat crunchy food with each meal. The crunchy food has also helped with water getting stuck in her ear tubes. Whenever she gets the "blocked" feeling, she will eat a whole raw carrot and it unclogs it almost immediately. She also has a weakened diaphragm.

This makes my heart heavy. I just took my daughter to her 15mo. well check up today... Doc wants her to go to a neurologist to inquire about speech problems..and brain. Her abdoman is also weak. c5 c6 stretched so far that no information was traveling to her upper arm until abourt 9 mo. of age. c7 &c8 were stretched enough where she had hand..yet ever so slightly. She gets approx 3 hours A DAY therapy, mostly by myself, and 3x's a week for an hour professionally.
She has nice ROM, but so many other "little" things aren't "right". SO MANY! She doesn't use her palm on the effected side. I forgot , now, what the other questions were... she only has one word...Mom

Well, here are my answers:
1. yes, she was the "silent child" until age 3, even then she was silent in public, now at 5 speaks normally, but is shy
2. no
3. no
4. c5,c6 ruptured (non-conductive neuromas), c7 avulsed, c8 stretched
5. formal ot/pt 3x/week until age 4.5 plus every day with me.

There aren't any scientific studies being done on this yet. But I know that the doctors are seeing this injury as more "global" than first thought.

claudia