Voice of Truth: A Mother’s Journey to Help Her Son Heal from Apraxia of Speech

Tori Starling’s son, Jake, had always been a quiet, happy baby. But when the silence stretched into his toddler years, Tori knew something was wrong. Diving into speech therapy, Jake made some progress, but on the day before his third birthday, he was finally given a concrete diagnosis: Jake had childhood apraxia of speech, a disorder where the brain knows what to say, but the mouth, tongue, and jaw simply don’t cooperate.

Questions flooded Tori’s mind: Will my child ever speak? How will he ever have a complete vocabulary when he can only say five words now and has to work so hard for one tiny sound? Will he have friends? Will he be able to go to a normal school? Will he have other learning disabilities?

Devastated, confused, and overwhelmed, Tori found inspiration reading stories from other mothers who were facing similar challenges. This led her to start her own blog, where she could document Jake’s journey. She not only wanted to expand the network of parents dealing with apraxia, she wanted to track Jake’s progress so that she would never dismiss or forget how hard he worked for each accomplishment, big or small. Promising to do everything in her power to help her son possess some level of communication skills by the time he started kindergarten, she hoped the blog would be a testament to how they reached that goal together.

This book is a compilation of those blog posts, each a tiny chapter in a determined mother’s quest to help her son find his voice. In an intimate diary format, rewritten in places to create a flowing story, Tori chronicles the discipline, hard work, and love that is required of a parent with a special needs child--which not only included apraxia, but also eczema, asthma, and multiple food, chemical, and environmental allergies. Wading through the sometimes conflicting advice of her pediatrician, an allergy doctor, a naturopath, and finally an integrative MD, Tori learns to listen to her mother’s intuition instead of ignoring it. In the process, she allows us to experience the progressions and regressions, triumphs and heartaches, of working with a range of speech therapists; finding the most effective flash cards, songs, and targeted activities; learning hand signs to help with sounds; uncovering the dietary changes that led to breakthroughs; and so much more.

Though not intended to be a prescriptive book, Voice of Truth details what worked and what didn’t for Jake. In addition to speech therapy and at-home activities, Tori explored what nutritional deficiencies and food sensitivities may be contributing to his symptoms. Approximately a year after a clean diet and supplements were added into the mix, Jake tested out of apraxia--ultimately resulting in a little boy who entered kindergarten able to talk to his classmates and learn with ease.

If you have a son or daughter who’s been diagnosed with apraxia, this book will offer you hope and ways to find joy in the journey as you navigate the ups and downs of this unique speech disorder.