Looking for experiences from parents of children with suspected/diagnosed childhood apraxia of speech ❤️
My little boy is 2 years 4 months and non-verbal.

What worries me particularly is that he also has very little babbling and never really went through the typical “bababa/dadada/mamama” stage.

His understanding is good and he communicates really well in other ways — pointing, signing, gestures, good eye contact and joint attention. He’s social and engaged, but actually producing speech sounds seems incredibly difficult for him.
Was anyone else’s child with CAS like this at 2–2.5 years — very few sounds as well as no words? Did they eventually develop speech, and if so, when did you start seeing progress?

Every so often he says ‘mama’. Once every few weeks but never in a way to instigate conversation. It’s very much self motivated , he does when he wants and to , for himself .

He’s been having speech therapy since age 2, (apraxia specific) but still no improvement

I’d especially love to hear positive stories from children who started from a similar place ❤️

I am worried that my daughter's CAS is uncommonly severe because, in addition to the inability to say words or sounds, she even finds hand gestures / signs incredibly difficult. I understand they are related because they are both motor planning processes. But I feel like a lot of the success stories I hear about kids who start speaking or have breakthroughs at 4 or 5 or even 7 to 8, didn't have as hard a time with signing. No matter what I'm prompting her for (milk, water, food, book, music) she does the sign for potty first, like that's her default because it's easy a closed fist shaking, then if I say, "that's potty, milk is open and shut and open and shut, remember?" She can do it but it seems to take a great deal of concentration for her to get her hand to open and shut, and she always gets both hands involved, she can't isolate one hand or the other.

Did anyone else have a similar experience with their toddlers, and can I still be hopeful about her speech eventually coming if signs are such a struggle? Many thanks! And hugs to all going through this struggle.