Pandas and Speech?

[Indigo]

Hello,

 

Has anyone heard of PANDAS affecting speech?

 

The reason I am asking is that my son had scarlet fever was he was 18 months old which turned into mono which lasted about 6 weeks. He never really recovered from that...after that he was given an autism diagnosis which was overturned by a psych evaluation who said that the speech articulation issue was what was affecting his social skills. A Ped found that he has severe chronic allergies which may be affecting his hearing. A speech therapist told me that he sounds to her like his tonsils and adonoids are swollen when he talks.

 

We have been waiting for an appt. with dd's doctor (who helped me find the PANDAS in her) for months and he has an opening tomorrow for ds. I'm going to bring up the possibility of PANDAS for ds...he also has an eye tic which started after the scarlet fever and he has always done things like lined his toys up, likes doors and gates to always be shut and must do it himself, etc. But he's very sweet, social, no tantrums, etc. He just has difficulty articulating words although he is constantly trying to talk and is willing to try over and over until the person understands. He has been on allergy medicine for a month now, but it hasn't helped his speech much. He is always telling me his ears are closed and trying to clean them out himself. So it could just be allergy issues and not PANDAS. Oh, and he has severe separation anxiety. But he's only four, too.

[EAMom]

Our dd (PANDAS 8 years old, doing great on Azithromycin) is in speech therapy...but a lot of kids at her school to to speech therapy so I don't know if there is any direct link it is just coincidence. She also has handwriting, spelling issues. We think the spelling issues is from dyslexia but also may be related to her speech issues.

 

Chronic ear infections can lead to auditory problems/speech problems. And it seems that a lot of PANDAS kids have had multiple infections (strep etc) so maybe that is how it is tied together. Perhaps PANDAS kids in general are more prone to infection/have "different" immune systems. (The June 2008 Kurlan study did say that the PANDAS kids seemed to get more strep than the non-PANDAS kids.)

 

That said, our PANDAS dd never had ear infections. (Our other, 5 year old, dd had a lot of them as an infant/toddler, but not so many that she needed tubes. )

[michele]

Yes, Dr. Murphy told us they are related. She told me to have a speech evaluation, central auditory processing testing, a full scale multi factor evaluation including attention battery done. Also she recommended OT evaluation. She was concerned my son's voice was raspy and horse. It turned out he was fine in speech testing other then age related issues on certain sounds. However he was very delayed in motor skills including visual motor perception and needed OT. He also has sensory issues. He needed glasses because of eye straining one eye working too hard. So yes, speech delays and PANDAS can be related. With my son at age four they just kept saying we will wait and see you in six months. It wasn't until he was six and showing multiple issues that lasted for a year that they decided to try medication. Hope this helps.

Hello,

 

Has anyone heard of PANDAS affecting speech?

 

The reason I am asking is that my son had scarlet fever was he was 18 months old which turned into mono which lasted about 6 weeks. He never really recovered from that...after that he was given an autism diagnosis which was overturned by a psych evaluation who said that the speech articulation issue was what was affecting his social skills. A Ped found that he has severe chronic allergies which may be affecting his hearing. A speech therapist told me that he sounds to her like his tonsils and adonoids are swollen when he talks.

 

We have been waiting for an appt. with dd's doctor (who helped me find the PANDAS in her) for months and he has an opening tomorrow for ds. I'm going to bring up the possibility of PANDAS for ds...he also has an eye tic which started after the scarlet fever and he has always done things like lined his toys up, likes doors and gates to always be shut and must do it himself, etc. But he's very sweet, social, no tantrums, etc. He just has difficulty articulating words although he is constantly trying to talk and is willing to try over and over until the person understands. He has been on allergy medicine for a month now, but it hasn't helped his speech much. He is always telling me his ears are closed and trying to clean them out himself. So it could just be allergy issues and not PANDAS. Oh, and he has severe separation anxiety. But he's only four, too.

[EAMom]

My dd is going to have an OT, neuropsychological/psychoeducational evaluation later this month...it'll be interesting to see how thing turn out. The psychologist did think it is possible that the PANDAS is affecting her learning issues even though her OCD symptoms are in remission.

[Caryn]

Indigo,

What kind of allergies did the doctor test for? Speech issues can be related to food allergy/intolerance issues as well. Our son had speech issues as well (couldn't pronounce "C's" and "R's" and "F's" and a slight stutter that we were told to 'wait' on much like Michelle was because our son was also only 4 at the time. We had a few motor skill issues that I was always keeping watch on, things that concerned me from my special education teaching days. For instance, my son had a 'crossing the midline' issue. He had trouble pedaling a bike (didn't learn that until this year-- at 5 1/2), had severe handwriting issues (although he is considered gifted and learned to read before 4 yrs old), had pronunciation issues, and visual processing issues. His coordination was off as well. We saw major improvements in these things after we found out he is Celiac too and changed his diet. The changes didn't happen overnight but just on the issue of handwriting alone the improvements are remarkable. And I can confidently say that it was the diet more than anything because he was not actively practicing his handwriting as he has only just now entered kindergarten. We've been on the diet now for over 1 1/2 years.

If you haven't got adequate titers and cultures to prove that in your case it is indeed cut and dry PANDAS I would highly suggest you get further testing to rule out other causes as well. Don't overlook other options.

Check out terms like developmental apraxia of speech, gluten ataxia.

You will find info on many different forums that discuss these issues, especially on Autism forums. For certain susceptible folks gluten is a neurotoxin. Many folks that use a GFCF diet get positive results. We aren't on one. Our diet is specific to an IgG intolerance test we took.

I personally found these success claims to be true in our case as well. In addition to improved coordination skills and handwriting skills our son also has better concentration. He is doing great in school and is not in need of supports for a disability-- speech is age appropriate as is handwriting and gross motor skills. We do use supplements as part of our regime (which I believe helps as well). He's a different kid now than he was at onset, and he has been stable since about five months into the gluten free diet. We don't see wax and wanes unless there is accidental ingestion of an allergen or his immune system is under attack, and then the symptoms are ever so slight in comparison to his onset of symptoms.

Look into it.

Caryn

[amy s]

My dd has a little bit of a raspy voice and can get down right hoarse very easily. As far as pronouncation, she has no problems and otherwise she is very verbal. Speech in general began early to normal age.