SLP Mommy of Apraxia

Category: dyslexia

  • Disabilities, extraordinary abilities, and lessons in neurodiversity

    Disabilities, extraordinary abilities, and lessons in neurodiversity

    Neurodiversity and learning disability were never in my vocabulary before I had my daughter.

    I had never been exposed to learning disabilities of any kind really, and I had no idea the extraordinary gifts those who are neurodiverse had to offer this world.

    No, when I was in second grade, I was in my egocentric world and our teacher had us write “a book.”  It was a short story and we were to write on the typical school paper that has a box at the top to draw an illustration and then lines at the bottom to write the story.  Writing was always my thing.  Art….was……not.  I usually skipped the picture and went straight to writing.  In my defense though, I never technically had an art teacher.  However, even if I had, I’m sure I would have still been that defiant snotty little girl who turned up her nose at art.

    During one edit, the teacher told me the book was great but I needed illustrations.  I argued with her.  Her job wasn’t to teach me how to draw, her job was to teach me how to write.  Drawing was for the kids who didn’t know how to write and I knew how, so what did it matter anymore?  Did I mention I also went to a Catholic school, so I was marked down automatically for being sassy?  I never pulled that again, but it didn’t stop me from internally rebelling against drawing.

    “When will I EVER need to know how to draw as an adult?” I indignantly exclaimed to my mom.

    My Catholic school teacher had the last laugh though when I became a speech/language pathologist and discovered I needed to know something I didn’t know how to do.  You guessed it.  Draw.

    “What is that?  Is that a dinosaur?” one kid would ask of my drawing of a horse.

    “That’s supposed to be a bird?” another asked of my drawing of an airplane.

    Yes friends.  That sassy, know it all second grade girl started wishing she had paid more attention to art.

    Fast forward 30 years and I have a little past second grade daughter myself.  She has a laundry list of learning disabilities, many stemming from an etiology in motor planning and cerebral palsy.  Everything for Ashlynn seems hard.  She has had to fight and claw her way to learn anything through hours and hours of therapy.  I’m not kidding.  In Elementary school, she started coming home with art pieces from art class that were nothing short of amazing.  They were so amazing, it was sadly hard for me to believe that she did them without help.  However, her art teacher maintained she taught all the kids in a very structured way, giving them multiple opportunities for practice (think motor planning) before completing the final piece. This was Ashlynn’s best one from last year.

    Despite this, Ashlynn had never demonstrated to me independently she could draw even remotely close to this on her own.

    That was, until tonight.

    “Mommy, do you know how to draw a fox?” Ashlynn asked me tonight at dinner.

    “Oh baby, I don’t really know how to draw much of anything,” I answered while my husband snorted his drink out his nose in laughter before adding,

    “That much is true!  Mommy is not an artist.”

    I shot him an evil glare but unfortunately there was no denying the truth.

    “Can I teach you how mommy?  I learned how to draw a fox in art?” Ashlynn offered.

    I agreed and after dinner she had gathered paper and coloring utencils and set to work.  I really wasn’t sure what to expect.

    “Put your fist in the middle of the paper like this, and now draw a line across the top,” she instructed.

    I complied.

    “Now connect this line to this line and see?  We made an upside-down pizza,” Ashlynn continued.

    I looked at the perfect triangle and my mind raced back to three days earlier at OT where the therapist told me Ashlynn’s hardest shape to draw is a triangle because of the diagnal lines. I stared incredulously again at Ashlynn’s perfect triangle.

    “Mom!  Are you paying attention?”

    She then took me in precise detail through the rest of the picture.

    I was impressed by this.

    “You are such a great teacher Ashlynn,” I said.

    “I know mommy because I want to be a teacher you know that.  A teacher and a dog walker because that’s my deal.”

    I smiled.  She just produced a compound complex sentence.  This girl with apraxia and a language disorder just said that.

    Next was the colors.

    I fought back tears.  This was incredible.  I watched her color the page with her wrist fluidly and precisely moving back and forth and my mind flashed back to when her OT told me that until she is able to isolate her wrist from her arm, she would always have trouble coloring within the lines.  I marveled at her wrist now.  Isn’t that crazy?  What mom would marvel at their child’s wrist and control unless they had witnessed how hard that skill was to master.

    Next was texturing and drawing the trees.

    She used these terms I had never heard like “we have to jump and bump.”  I followed along dutifully.  At the end of her lesson I praised her.  It was incredible.

    “But Mommy, we aren’t done!” she said as she got out two new blank pieces of paper.

    She told me we had to write about them.

    Write?  Like actually write?  This girl with motor planning, dyslexia, and dysgraphia now wanted to write about the fox?  She began writing but immediately messed up her spelling. As she peered over at my page that she had dictated, she decided to just copy my sentence. I watched her form the letters as she had been taught and practiced throughout her years of OT and copy my sentence. There was a time, she couldn’t even copy her name, I thought to myself.

    “Sorry, mommy, ” she said, “I can’t write really good yet.”

    I responded, “That’s okay, because I can’t draw very well.”

    “But I can teach you!” she said happily.

    With tears in my eyes I told her,

    “If you teach me how to draw, I’ll teach you how to write.”

    “DEAL!” was her enthusiastic response.

    So that’s the deal.

    Thirty years later my art teacher was a 9 year old girl with cerebral palsy, severe motor planning deficits and a laundry list of learning disabilities whose greatest wish in the world is to be a teacher.  Little does she know, she already is.

     

  • Thank you for choosing me to be your mom

    Thank you for choosing me to be your mom

    It’s Halloween, 2018.  You are a freshly turned nine-year old.  You are 9 years old. My mind immediately repeats a phrase from my dad,

    “Mr. Baskall, here’s your little baby girl.”

    I remember I would roll my eyes and scoff at him.

    “Ugh dad!” I would lament as he looked at me with eyes brimming with pride.

    I don’t have any words to describe or memorialize your entrance into this world, but I have your pictures.

    Halloween, 2009 was the most magical holiday that I have ever experienced.  It was the first holiday I ever experienced as a mom.  I was a mom.

    I was a mom!!

    On Halloween’s prior, the entire holiday was full of self-entitlement, but the Halloween of 2009 was full of something completely different.  I had given life to the most beautiful angel.

    My normally highlighted hair was brown, which is actually my natural color.  I had diligently not dyed my hair while pregnant with Ashlynn to ensure no harmful chemicals crossed my scalp, into my bloodstream, crossing the placenta and then hurting my baby.  I remember taking every precaution to ensure I had the healthiest baby my body could possibly produce.  An avid craft beer drinker from Colorado, I would refuse to even take a sip while pregnant.  I ate my lunch meat warm to avoid lysteria and eliminated all caffeine so my developing fetus was never exposed to any stimulant in utero.  I wore an industrial style mask when I painted her baby room to ensure she was exposed to no harmful fumes.

    So confident was I in ensuring I had followed every caution and recommendation, the thought never even once crossed my mind I would have a child with any sort of developmental delay.

    Life sure answered back with a big middle finger and boisterous laugh at that one.

    Every Halloween though, I become nostalgic.  I remember that new mom holding that tiny baby in her cute onesie with the pumpkin bum and beaming with pride.  I remember my husband dutifully reporting to work each day, but taking time to hold, hug, kiss and fawn over the tiny human we had somehow created together.

    I remember my heart being so full I thought it could actually burst from the amount of love that it was trying to contain inside.  Every Halloween, ironically, reminds me just what a GIFT life actually is. Yes, this day of the dead reminds me of how lucky any of us are to actually live.  Halloween always reminds me of how blessed I was to have a baby.

    I had no idea then, all the challenges life had in store for Ashlynn.  When I look at that picture, I see the instant connection a mother has to her child.  Our eyes are fixated on each other, and I know she trusted me to be the person to never give up on her.  I remember what an honor it is that Ashlynn chose me to be her mom, and I renew my commitment to never, ever, EVER, give up on her.

    I love you Ashlynn Kay.  Thank you for choosing me to be your mom.  I hope I never let you down.

     

  • SLP’s integral role in the five components of reading

    SLP’s integral role in the five components of reading

    When I was younger and learned to read, I remember I was taught phonics.  I remember the phonics workbooks I had, and would read the rules at the bottom of the page for spelling.  It was all very systematic. Little did I know at the time, phonics was just one part of the five components of reading that can contribute to reading disorders.

    Today, a concept called whole language dominates our public education systems.  Not every school district or school uses this approach, but very many of them do and it is at a detriment to our children who have reading disorders.  Some critics go so far as to say whole language is “anti-phonics.”  I don’t believe it’s quite that extreme.  However, for kids who have reading disorders, the vast majority struggle with phonemic awareness and decoding, which a whole language curriculum is not even close to adequately addressing.

    I’m fortunate that when I started my career, Ashlynn’s SLP was very knowledgeable on the topic.  I had no idea that learning about the five components of reading before my child was even conceptualized would come back and benefit her some day.

    So, what are the five components of reading?

    They are: Phonemic Awareness, Decoding, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. These areas were identified by the National Reading Panel that was convened by Congress in 1999. It’s very important that parents and educators are aware of these five components, because weaknesses in any one component can cause a child to struggle to read.

    Speech/Language Pathologists can play a big role in reading.  They are trained and certified to treat children with three of the five components.  A Speech/Language Pathologist can work on phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension.  This is why they are frequently on IEP’s when children have reading disorders.  It is very infrequent that the older school-aged child with dyslexia is seeing the SLP to work on their “sounds.”

    Parents and educators all need to be aware and familiar with these five components if they want to help children effectively who are struggling to read.  During my time in Denver Public Schools, an excellent teacher advocated the use of a “fishbone” analysis when testing kids who were struggling to read.

     

    As you can see, it contains the five components of reading, and spaces to document a child’s performance in all five areas.  It could be possible to have a child who has difficulties in all of these areas.  However, more frequently a couple of areas usually stand out.  One area that is frequently a problem is with phonological awareness skills.  This can be tricky because elementary school children many times get identified with a reading disorder past the time that instruction with phonological awareness is taught.  Teachers jump right into reading instruction without realizing the child is lacking the basic building blocks for reading in the first place.

    So what is phonological awareness?

    Phonological awareness refers to a child’s ability to manipulate sounds out loud.  Tasks included in this umbrella might be to identify the initial sound in a word, blend sounds, segment sounds, identify the last sound in a word, or be able to identify and formulate rhyming words.  Logically it would make sense why this is a building block skill.  If a child can’t do these things out loud, it’s going to be very difficult to transfer these skills when looking at graphemes (letters).

    Phonics/Decoding

    Phonics refers to the actual act of sounding out words.  To do this skill, children need to have mastered knowing letters and letter sounds, and then be able to use this knowledge of letter sounds to “decode” a word.

    Vocabulary

    A child’s vocabulary many times affects background knowledge, which is important in reading.  If the words they are trying to read hold no meaning due to low vocabulary skills, it is going to be harder for them to understand what they are reading.  In addition, a child with weak vocabulary skills will have a harder time monitoring their comprehension when reading sentences.  I see this all the time as an SLP. An example of this would be if a child were to read the sentence “He saw the dog.”  Instead of “saw” he/she read “sam” and they would continue reading.  Many children without a language disorder would realize “He sam the dog” didn’t make sense and go back and try and fix the sentence so that it makes sense. Kids with language disorders have a very difficult time with this skill.

    Fluency

    Fluency refers to a child’s ability to read text accurately and quickly while maintaining good expression.  The ability for a child to read fluently helps with comprehension.  If a child’s fluency is slow and choppy, they may be allocating so much brain power to decoding that they are not monitoring comprehension. If a child lacks expression in their reading, this too can affect comprehension.

    Comprehension

    Comprehension is simple terms, means understanding what we read.  Kids with a mixed receptive/expressive language disorder or an auditory processing disorder frequently experience difficulties with text comprehension.

    What does this mean for parents?

    The bottom line for parents is that reading is a complicated process that has many components.  A deficit in one or more of the above listed components can cause a child to struggle when learning how to read.  Children with speech and language disorders are at high risk for reading disabilities. Being aware of all five components helps parents be more informed regarding treatment approaches and options their child may need to catch up in reading.

    This article contains information from the National Reading Panel’s Findings

     

    Laura Smith is a first and foremost a mom to two amazing children, one of which who carries a constellation of invisible labels including: Childhood Apraxia of Speech, dysarthria, SPD, ADHD, MERLD, dyspraxia, dyslexia, and cerebral palsy. She is a speech/language pathologist specializing in Childhood Apraxia of Speech following her daughter’s diagnosis.  SLPMommyofApraxia is her space to share her professional and personal experiences related to the complex but beautiful world of neuro-diversity and to spread a message of hope, positivity, acceptance, and kindness.

  • 1st Day of 3rd Grade

    1st Day of 3rd Grade

    My dearest Ashlynn,

    Your courage amazes me daily.  It inspires me and pushes me beyond any limit real or imagined.  Today was your first day of 3rd grade.  You have been waiting for this day since the last day of 2nd grade.  Actually, quite possibly since the first day of 2nd grade when you told me,“After 2nd grade you I will be in 3rd grade!”

    I emphatically responded,

    “We need to make it through 2nd grade first!”

    We bought you a new backpack, new outfit, new shoes, and you got a new haircut.  Two out of the four items went as planned.  The backpack and new shoes went off without a hitch.  The other two? Well Ashlynn, it’s just not our style to have a few hiccups is it?

    Getting a new haircut is always an adventure.  Your dyspraxia, ADHD, SPD, and receptive language issues make following specific commands somewhat challenging don’t they?  I stepped in to help guide your head where it needed to go so the stylist would stop reminding you of how hard it was for you to follow those simple commands.

    Then came the new outfit.  We picked it out together!  I didn’t think we needed to try it on because I know what size you are and I was sure it would fit.  Last night we hung it up on your dresser anticipating the first day of school! However, this morning when you went to put it on you were more confused than ever.  I came into help and realized I had bought you a romper! That flowey material fooled both of us didn’t it!!  I could have sworn it was a dress.  A romper though?  Yeah, not a friend to the girl who has dyspraxia.  I apologized and offered other options in your closet.  We chose a pretty sun dress you hadn’t worn much, but I still felt bad.

    You took it in stride though!

    All morning you were jumping up an down and excited to go to school and I marveled at you.  School is so hard for you.  Last year you came home with bloodied shirts or completely different shirts because you had so thoroughly stained yours from picking your finger nails.  Almost every assignment you completed you struggled in, and many times you ate and played alone.  How on Earth were you excited to go back to that?

    Three days before we saw an ex client of mine who is your age.  Her apraxia is resolved and she has residual learning disabilities.  She told us how she didn’t want to go back to school because she was bullied and you sat there un-phased.   I thought to myself if I were in either of your shoes I would feel like my client; yet I was so grateful you are you.

    You have a strength and internal resolve I am working towards.  You have courage and resiliency I have yet to conquer.  Where my instinct is to run back your instinct is to jump forward.

    I am inspired by you.  I am always going to be here by your side.  I’m going to love you, but I’m going to push you.  I’m going to do everything in my power to help you obtain the tools you need in order to live life on your terms.

    It took me many years to believe and even more to practice this simple advice:

    Heck it takes grown men and women to follow this advice, and let’s face it.  Some die before they ever follow this advice at all. YOU embody this.  YOU are a living testament to this.

    Pursue it all Ashlynn!  I’ve always got your back and I’m your biggest fan!

    Love,

    Mommy

  • This school year, teach your children to be kind.

    This school year, teach your children to be kind.

    Fresh backpack, lunchbox, shoes and school outfit are waiting tomorrow for my child’s first day of school.  There is an excitement in the air as we bought school supplies and met her teacher last week.  She picked out her name tag like the other kids and picked her seat.  She flashed a big smile to her new teacher and chattered endlessly about school starting again and how she was excited to go back and to learn.  We went and got a new haircut and she told the stylist how she was starting third grade.

    Tomorrow I will take the historic first day of school picture. I will probably proudly post it on all of my social media accounts.  I will most likely scroll back and look at it a couple of times and wonder where my baby has gone.  I will marvel at how this school aged girl with long legs is standing on my front porch.

    That is where the similarities will end.

    As many parents cheer and are relieved to get back to a routine, I’m left with only nerves and trepidation.  The summers in my house are happy.  My daughter is a child who can explore the outdoors and experience life as a carefree and curious kid.  She plays with neighbor children until bedtime and explores campgrounds on the weekend.  She makes mud pies and collects dirt under her fingernails that need to be clipped and scrubbed frequently.

    Unfortunately school brings other stories.  The child who played carefree until bedtime with neighbors is the same child who is frequently seen sitting with her teacher’s aid (TA) at lunch and playing by herself on the playground.  The fingernails that grew long and collected dirt over the summer are replaced with widdled down nubs during school that are bit, picked and chewed so much that her shirts frequently come home bloodied or on some really bad days, have to be changed completely.

    The girl who chatted endlessly to family and friends is the same girl who is quiet and reserved at school, frequently clamming up when put on the spot or asked a direct question.

    The child who could explore during the summer and jump from varying activities is the same child who frequently loses focus and can’t concentrate on subjects at school.

    My child has invisible learning disabilities.

    Many of them.

    However underneath them, she is still just a kid like your son or your daughter.  She is curious.  She is friendly.  She wants friends.  She craves connections.  She’s excited to learn.

    This year as you talk to you children about their new teacher, new classroom, and new adventures, I beg you to talk to your kids about being kind.  I beg you to explain to your child that children with disabilities are just like them, but it might take a little longer to understand or get to know them.  If nothing else though, please just teach your children to be kind.  Maybe ask about something they did that was kind alongside your questions of who they played with or what they learned.

    Our kids will thank you for it!

    Sincerely,

    A proud mama to a child with hidden disabilities

  • Executive functioning home intervention

    Executive functioning home intervention

    Let’s talk executive functioning.  If you follow my facebook page SLPMommyofApraxia (click here), you already know we are making our house an executive functioning friendly zone and you might have read a prior post I wrote a  “What is Executive Functioning, and Why Do You Need to Know?”

    What does an executive functioning friendly zone mean exactly?  I decided to put all of it into a post so you can see and hopefully help others who may have children with similar issues.

    Before I begin, I just want to say this:

    Children with learning differences, many, many, MANY times benefit from the use of visuals.  There have a been a handful of cases in my career where visual aids actually confused the student more; but for the most part, visual aids benefit everyone.  This visual from northstarpaths really explains why:

    Executive functioning (EF) deficits are a common comorbidity with a variety of conditions including: ADHD, OCD, ID and others just to name a few.

    Visuals are AMAZINGLY helpful for children with EF dysfunction.   The problem is, most teaching involves auditory input.  The teacher (or parent) talks, children listen, and learning takes place.  For kids like my daughter, who have a language processing impairment, the teacher (or parent)  talking is basically the equivalent to the teacher in the Peanuts comic series.  All the children hear are “wah wah, wah wah wah wah.”

    Visuals bridge the gap.  I couldn’t say it better than Benjamin Franklin, who himself had a learning disability when he said,

    Aside from just visuals though, kids with EF dysfunction benefit from organization and time management strategies.  The following is what we currently have implemented in my home.

    Morning Routine

    The most recent example from my personal experience involved the steps to getting ready for school.  If I told Ashlynn what to do, she immediately forgot or I had to go through step by step and tell her, which is not promoting independence.  With the help of her SPED teacher, we made this visual schedule and she was successfully completing all of her steps without our help in about two weeks.

    Restroom steps

    We decided to make a visual schedule for completing bathroom steps.  Let me tell you that we have been working on remembering these for AT LEAST a year.  Last year in 2017, I sent her to Adam’s Camp and remember telling the therapists she can say all the steps but still is not consistent.  After Adam’s Camp she came home being able to sing them as well, and still, we could not get consistency.   So we made a visual schedule a little different than her morning schedule and it looked like this.

    This was NOT successful.  It probably has too many steps and it doesn’t have the nice left to right motion the morning schedule this, so I modified and made this.

     

    I’d be lying if I said this was a complete success right off the bat, but it has worked better than any other strategy to date and now that the summer has hit, we have made sure she has to go back and complete her steps every single time.

    Cleaning her room

    The next step was to tackle completing a basic chore like cleaning her room.  I can’t even begin to explain the difficulty with this.  What I do know, is that many adults with ADHD continue to struggle with disorganization into adulthood.  It behooves us now to help our kids develop strategies that are going to serve them well throughout their lives.

    The first step is to make sure everything has a place.  Classrooms are set up this way for a reason.  There is a specific space for each and every item that is used or played with in a classroom.  If not, things will inevitibely end up in a pile of clutter.  Ashlynn and I went through her room and designated certain drawers and bins for different things.  Everything has a spot.  There is a bookshelf, a lego bin, a writing utencil drawer, a baby clothes bin, you get the idea.

    I then created a visual schedule of each piece of furniture that she could check off as she went about her cleaning routine.

    I know it’s hard to read, but basically each furniture item is listed on the left, with a picture representation on the right of what it looks like done.  The picture on the bottom is a grand finale picture of what the entire room should look like clean after completing all of the steps for one last check.

    Next up was to have bigger picture velcroed to all of the furniture items so she could see as she was cleaning them what they are supposed to look like.  I know it seems redundant, but seriously if you have a child who struggles this, then you will relate when I say that a dresser with closed drawers looks fine with clothes hanging out of it to her.  Same with a picked up hamper.  I even have a picture showing what the closet should like closed and no that doesn’t mean it is closed until it hits the piles of crap.  It means actually closed and looking neat.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    I have to add that these helped, but still had to be taught.  In fact, it’s still a work in progress.  Some nights, I am so frustrated and just want to pull my hair my out.  I’m only human after all.  I do though, in those times, try and decompress and remind myself this is not a *fix* but a lesson.  Ashlynn doesn’t learn like other kids and that’s okay.  I have to realize though that all of this will pay off in the long run, and when we start early kids have the best outcomes.

    Homework

    Oh man don’t we hear horror stories about homework from parents of kids with varying learning differences.  Teachers make homework sound so easy.  Ten minutes for every grade you are in, so a first grader shouldn’t be more than 10 minutes a night.

    Say….what???  That assignment just took my kid an hour….and then when we went to second grade, that so called 20 minute assignment just took upwards off and on of two HOURS?  Minutes?  What?

    Know that homework can always be modified, but there are strategies that can be put in place to help with this too. Number one is to just start with a place that is going to make them successful for learning.  If you are like me, my first baby is the one with learning differences so instead of preparing for the ultimate learning environment, we were more focused on transitioning my son from a crib to a toddler bed and spent our money on that.  Needless to say, our kitchen table became her homework place.  Yes, the place that she eats and the chair in which she sits that her feet don’t touch on the ground yet is what we thought would be the perfect location for her to sit down and do that quick assignment in 10 minutes.  I should mention too it’s a thoroughfare in my house, so my kid with ADHD was also constantly distracted by the events taking place all around her.  Can we talk about set up to fail???

    I redid her room and created a homework corner.  I bought her a new desk in which she sat at a 90 degree angle, perpendicular to the floor, and decked it out with strategies from executive functioning queen Sarah Ward from the website Cognitive Connections.

    New desk with feet on the floor

    As you can see, I have her own desk, in a corner of her own room, that is quiet and in which her feet touch the floor!

    Get ready, do, done boards

    The colored board above the desk are suggestions from the cognitive connections website.  In the yellow, we write everything we need to get ready.  It might be as simple as a pencil and it might be more complicated if doing a project.  (To modify for non-readers, you can tape or velcro pictures that you need.).

    The green stands for “doing.” These are the steps you need to do to reach the finished project.  The finished project then is the red board and reflects what the assignment looks like when it is finished.  For lower level, you can put a picture of what a completed assignment looks like, or for readers you can simply write it.  Sarah Ward also recommends to “start with the end in mind,” meaning kid with EF deficits benefit from knowing what the end is supposed to look like and then working backwards. For a more elaborate description, go see Sarah Ward talk.  She’s amazing.

    Calendar

    We have tried a few different things to help Ashlynn learn time, and I’m not just talking time management.  Ashlynn has had a lot of difficulty learning the seasons, days of the weeks, the months, and understanding the difference between yesterday, today, tomorrow, last week, next week etc.

    I decided to buy this peeling dry erase calendar at target.  It’s huge and sits right by her desk.  Every month, she helps me write the month and the days.  We then go through and write her therapy/activity schedule and color code them.  Each activity is written in a different color.  The weekends are shaded on red since she has a difficult time understanding that Saturday and Sunday are one unit (the weekend) when they are split up on a normal calendar.  We then marked an X for each day that had passed and talked about yesterday and tomorrow.  This calendar has been AMAZING.  I might be so bold as to say it almost helped her understand days of the week right away.

    Her school though also hit this hard visually and created the following corner in the SPED room just for her.

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    This picture is also hard to see, but basically you see the basic calendar color coded by day in the middle.  To the left, each day of the week is color coded.  On the file cabinet on the right, the months are placed and she has to pick out the right month each day for added repetition.  The days are in the second bag, and there are tiles for the season and then arrows to talk about the concepts yesterday and tomorrow.  A normal calendar was provided as a reference to keep track of how her modified calendar related to a typical calendar.

    Timer

    Last to come is the timer I used for all of these tasks!  Time management is another HUGE skill that is difficult for those with EF deficits.

    The timer is from the autism community store here in Denver, but I’m sure you can find them on Amazon or other places.  This timer is amazing!!  The colors stand for different things similar to a stoplight.  Green means go, yellow means caution you are nearing the end, and red means you need to be done or stop NOW. What is best, is that each color is completely customizable by time.  For her morning routine, we usually set it for 3-3-3.  For homework, it might be  2-20-2.  Did I mention it also comes with sound?  So that means every color it changes to also has a sound to go with it, aka, an auditory cue.

    The impact

    I have to admit, there were times that as even I were making all of these materials and buying all these things that I wondered will this really make a difference?  Was all this work really worth it?? My answer came from Ashlynn.  As I was making these visuals, she probably thanked me more than 10 times.  She knows how she learns.  She was just waiting on me to help her.

    Laura Smith is a mom to two children, one of which who has multiple learning differences.  She is also an SLP (speech/language pathologist) specializing in CAS (Childhood Apraxia of Speech), a passion that was fueled by her daughter’s dx in 2012.  To learn more, visit slpmommyofapraxia.