This is what Ashlynn has said to me twice today. It’s rather timely since I just wrote about a post about letting our kids know they have apraxia so they have a name for the problems they experience. Ashlynn (I thought) has known she has apraxia, but I realized I said it a lot when we were still just trying to get her words out and her sounds right, but
I had a client recently who told me a well-meaning friend called her five year old son with apraxia “retarded.” Apparently he meant it in a “well-meaning way” asking about services, but understandably the term shocked, appalled, angered, and then saddened her. Isn’t it interesting what we all presume about a child based on nothing more than their speech? She went onto say she didn’t even correct him because at
The great thing about speech and language, is that it a task that can be worked on in any activity. Familiar routines in the home provide the perfect platform for encouraging speech and language, because this “routinized language” is predictable and context based. A fellow SLP and mommy of apraxia, Kim from Landonjourney.blogspot.com and I teamed up for Part I in my series of parent strategies to promote speech at
I first met a fellow mommy of apraxia at the Denver Apraxia Walk. She was pleasant with kind eyes, and said she felt her 5 year old son needed a change up in speech therapy services. The next week her son was scheduled for therapy at the private clinic in which I work. In most cases, I have my parents come with their child into my office. I NEED them
It starts with a question: Did I cause her apraxia? I know I’m not the only mom to wonder this, or worse, believe this. This is where the guilt sets in. It set in early and would tap on my shoulder in the shower, at lunch, or when I was trying to go to bed. Even though I’m an SLP, and I tell parents all the time that the speech
Ashlynn was my first child. In a way, it was fortunate I had nothing to compare her to, and in a way, it was unfortunate I had nothing to compare her to. My son Jace is my second child and is currently 16 months. He not only walks…he RUNS. He not only babbles and says words, he puts two and three words together!! Every time he hits a milestone, my