I am the current walk coordinator for the Denver Walk for Apraxia of Speech, benefiting the Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America. Before I was walk coordinator, I was merely a first year participant who had signed my family up to walk for my daughter Ashlynn. I remember signing up at the very last minute right before the T-shirt deadline. I did this, despite knowing about it for
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 always talk about emotional intelligence, and I really wish it was talked about or even acknowledged at IEP meetings because it’s a real thing and people with it make this world a better place.
I see a question that gets asked a lot. In fact, I asked it myself. It usually goes something along the lines of, “Did you tell your child they had apraxia? If you did, how did you say it? What did you say?” I remember thinking when I first saw this question that I wouldn’t tell Ashlynn until way later….and then…maybe if she still seemed apraxic, I would tell her.
The 2016 National Conference on Childhood Apraxia of Speech has come to an end. As I sit in the plane, I look at the burnt orange, red, and brown sunset setting over wispy clouds and the windy city. Since I live in Denver, we are flying west, and it feels like we are literally flying into the setting sunset sky. I get to reflect on my time here in Chicago,
It’s been three years since I last attended the national conference on apraxia. At that time, my daughter had been diagnosed with apraxia for just under a year, and I was still scared and sad about what the future held for my sweet Ashlynn. I re-read my blog post I wrote after that conference, and it didn’t begin to capture all the emotions I had at that time, or what