Just want to make it clear I'm not looking for a diagnosis, just some resources and correction, if I'm off base here.

TLDR: six year old child with apraxia having difficulty recognizing words and symbols (pretty good on spelling when given lots of time to practice). Typical of apraxia?

Some background: I nanny for a family of three kiddos, and have been there three years. Previously, I worked for 9 years in an early intervention autism program (DIR (Floortime) play-based model), as well as an ABA center for a year. Plus I have 22 years of experience with kids which includes other nanny jobs, babysitting, and tutoring.

The six year old was diagnosed with childhood apraxia sometime in her toddler hood and has had speech services and PT at school (a least until March. Nothing after shut down). Her speech production is quite good at this point. She is still a little nasal and occasionally stutters, but I wouldn't say she presents as having disordered speech.

Processing, however is definitely an issue both with understanding what has been said, and reacting or "starting" speech, especially if she is excited or upset. I have seen her kind of shut down in busy environments. I can't imagine what it was like being in a classroom for her. She presents as an extremely compliant and quiet child when she's at school. Different story at home.

None of that surprises me. What I was shocked at was the level of learning difficulties she was having. I had no idea until I started doing virtual school with her at the end of March. I'm trying not to let this get too long. What I really want to know is, how much is interpreting visual information an issue in apraxia? I always understood apraxia to be primarily a motor and processing disorder, but most of the reading mistakes and difficulties this child is having, seem to be with confusing symbols.

She does make some mistakes that seem to be typical of apraxia from what I've read (spelling "are" as "rev" for example or coming up with similarly non-phonetic misspellings). However, I have also seen her have a very hard time processing visual information. For example, she may know a word on a flash card, or even get it completely right on a spelling test, but then be unable to read it in a block of text. I've also seen her sound out new words backwards. For example, reading Sam as "mas". We practiced sight words, and CVC words a lot over the summer, but didn't do much with math. In the spring I noticed that she did not seem to understand what plus, minus, and equal signs actually meant. At the end of kindergarten she could not spell or read words like of, are, and go. We drilled all summer, on common words, and she is reading and spelling with more ease and confidence. Being able to slow down and hyper focus on a few areas has worked well for her. She also "loses" words and skills without maintenance.

However, sometimes she still will get stuck on a word that she is reading. Often, it is a word I know that she knows. If I spell it out loud she can recognize it ("Babe, o-n-e." "Oh! One!“). Or, if I write it on a separate sheet of paper she can read it. Is this typical of apraxia? I was kind of horrified about how behind she was at the end of kindergarten, and it seems like I am the only one who is? I told the parents I think that she should get independently evaluated for other reading disorders. The parents think the school is fine and don't think anything else is going on besides the apraxia. There are some other mistakes she makes pretty consistently, too, but this is already too long. Am I completely off base? Is apraxia also to blame for her problem processing visual information?

She's very good at flying under the radar. Between her apparent docile and compliant nature, and the fact that she's figured out how to get through basic worksheets without ever knowing what word she's learning, and does that to some extent with math as well, I am worried she's going to get so far behind before anyone catches this. It's completely out of my control, I'm just a nanny. But I just want to know for my own self, if I'm really off here. Am I overreacting?