SLP Mommy of Apraxia

Tag: Apraxia

  • The high of summer! The fear of “back to school.”

    The high of summer! The fear of “back to school.”

    Oh summer, how I love thee. Filled with swimming lessons, play dates; visits to the park and zoo.

    During summer, I get to see my children be children. Their carefree smiles light up a room, and the echoes of their laughter can be heard long after they lay down their head. Yes, therapy appointments are a way of life for Ashlynn, but even speech and occupational therapy bring positive updates from the session and we can quickly return to our days of play.

    This summer I signed up to a few good facebook pages I found: MamaOT and Inspired Treehouse. I LOVE these pages! Instead of the packet of ideas I would get heaped upon my shoulders during the school year, these pages provide an idea a day to do with your child. Simple, easy, fun! When I just get one idea a day, the load seems MUCH more manageable. I was so inspired, I tried to do the same for speech and language on my SLP Mommy of Apraxia page, since I’m usually doing something related throughout my day with my kids since that at least, comes naturally to me. I really think they helped Ashlynn, and I felt good about incorporating some sort of speech, sensory, or occupational/physical therapy at home.

     My husband and I also saw HUGE improvements this summer in the motor realm. Ashlynn climbed a play structure that she had yet to conquer at our nearby park. Who knew how much core stability, bilateral hand coordination, and crossing midline play a part in climbing a simple play structure! Well, I’ll tell you who know.

    Parents of children who have dyspraxia!

    At the local amusement park, she was riding the tea cups independently. My husband shot a video. During the first two go rounds she was just sitting there, but by the third go round she figured out how to spin the wheel to spin her teacup! You should hear my husband cheer. Who knew how much core strength, bilateral hand coordination, and crossing midline play a part in being able to operate a simple teacup ride.

     Oh yeah, parents of children who have dyspraxia.

     However, now summer is coming to an end. I see facebook posts ripe with updates along the lines of “I’m so happy school is coming up!” Or memes like this one:

    Not me. School. Sigh. What can I say? I have a love/hate relationship with school.

     I firmly believe school helps children develop their social skills and gives them important language models, which is especially important for kids with speech and language delays. The first week my daughter went to school shortly after she turned three, she came home singing a tune I actually could decipher, and at that time she was nonverbal! That my friends, is the power of school!

     On the other hand, school brings new fears and new worries. I always thought, once she starts talking, I’ll be okay.

     Not true.

    Now I’m worried about her phonemic awareness skills, language lag, slow processing speed, and being able to write.

     My God how much do kids need to do and know now just to be ready for Kindergarten???

     I’m not looking forward to the IEP meeting, the parent/teacher conferences, the comparisons I try not to make when I’m visiting her classroom.

     Quite frankly…. It SUCKS. Apraxia STILL sucks!

     So no. I’m not ready for Ashlynn to go back to school. My SLP friend and mother to two young boys with apraxia who has a blog: Landon Journey just posted this song lyric the other day:

    If I could make days last forever
    If I could make wishes come true
    I’d save every day like a treasure and then,
    Again, I would spend them with you.

    As my brother says though, “Life’s not fair. Get used to it.”

    So farewell summer! I bid you adieu. You have been so kind to us this year. We have made castles in your warm sand, felt the glow of the sun upon our face, cooled off in your waters, and celebrated the milestones and successes at our pace. Though I’m anxious for the coming school year, I have faith you will be waiting on the other side.  Welcoming my children to your sunshine, casting light onto their beauty.

  • Why we need milestones, and why I can still be proud of my daughter.

    Why we need milestones, and why I can still be proud of my daughter.

    I recently read a blog article about not buying into speech and language milestones.  The writer asserts:

    “Because here’s what I think of traditional milestones: f*ck them…………My baby will do that when she’s ready. This is not the Olympics, people.”

    She went onto explain that parents seem to make milestones into some sort of competition, and she doesn’t want to buy into that.  I get her point probably even more poignantly that she does.  

    My child was late with all of her milestones, and because she was late, I felt the sting and continue to feel the sting every time someone else’s child on social media or in my life meets a milestone with which my daughter still struggles.   

    This author was already sick of the comparisons, real or imagined, and just wanted to enjoy her baby.  Yeah I can relate, but lucky for her it seems, her child was just on their own timeline and would still go on to develop typically.  Some kids aren’t so lucky, and those “milestones” become very important so that kids can get early intervention when they need it.

    Oh she goes onto say, “Is your pediatrician happy at your baby’s checkups? Good……remind yourself that no one’s counting.”

    Unless of course your pediatrician IS concerned, or worse they’re not and your child misses valuable early intervention.  

    Oh, and no one’s counting, unless of course you get to feel a punch to the gut when you are faced with low standard scores, percentile ranks, and descriptors like “definite dysfunction” or “severe apraxia of speech” or “below average,” in black and white reports that have your child’s name on the top.  Lucky for her, her pediatrician is happy and no one is counting.  

    What about the other kids she wasn’t considering who don’t meet them?  

    Yes, milestones make any parent crazy.  Yes, parents can get stuck on being overly proud of their offspring, but then again, they should be.  They’re the parent!  I’m proud of Ashlynn for other qualities that maybe some other kids her age don’t yet possess as adeptly including: 
    Empathy
    Sensitivity
    Kindness
    Thoughtfulness
    Optimism
    Perseverance
    Bravery
    Compassion

    And why shouldn’t I be?  I’m her parent, and I’m supposed to be proud of what she is good at.  I don’t look at other parents with disdain who have kids meeting or blowing the lid off the milestones.  Jealousy maybe, but not disdain.  I think, good for them.  They should be proud of their child,  and every child deserves and needs their parents to be proud of them for their unique God given talents.

    So, I decided to write a printable for the parents who are forced to look at milestones.  Who have googled milestones and felt the pit in their stomach when they know their child isn’t meeting them. I wrote this so that parents will not say “F*ck them” but will instead pull up their big girl panties, and get the help they need for their child, no matter how hard and painful it is.


    Speech and Language Milestones: Birth to 3




  • Speech and Language with Post it Notes

    Speech and Language with Post it Notes

    My daughter loves Post it Notes.  LOVES them.  She loves writing some small scribble on them and then proudly sticking them up around the house to put on display.

    Today we drew pictures that included her target sounds to work on speech, but we also drew shapes to work on our pre-writing strokes for OT.

    Based on the response from my facebook post, my kid’s not alone in loving them!  Try it!  Easy and fun way to get speech practice in at home.

  • “I love you mommy!”

    “I love you mommy!”

    These words are cherished by any parent.  These words are eagerly anticipated.  When you have a child with a speech delay, the eager anticipation eventually gives way to desperation, and maybe, (though hopefully not) apathy.

    Ashlynn has been able to say “I love you” for awhile now.  Once she really got good at imitating, we had her imitate it every time we told her goodnight and tucked her into bed.  Now that she’s older, she automatically says it after we say it in any situation, and we are happy.  We are very happy.

    Today though, I heard these words spontaneously.  She said them in a moment of pure joy and blessed me with them.

    First, a little back story.  I’ve been home for a month now on summer break with my kids. It’s awesome and exhausting.

    I am admittedly not an artistic person, and I really could live without the messes that art creates.  I’m a writer.  Writing is so clean.  A pen and paper is all you need to create beauty out of words, which then are easily put away until later.

    Kids are not writers.  They do not yet appreciate the beauty within words, but they love a good mess.  A good mess and me are not on good terms.  However, kids and neatness are not on good terms either….so what is a mom to do?

    Ashlynn begs to do messy things.  Play with play-doh and proceed to get it everywhere including in her hair, in her shoe, and ground into the carpet even though she’s playing on the tile in the kitchen.

    Let it go mama.

    Play with water in the sink.  Except the water inevitably ends up in a huge puddle all over the (small) counter, the floor, her shirt, her pants, and possibly needing a change of underwear.

    Let it go mama

    Play with the dirt outside.  However, the dirt somehow happens to turn into mud that gets under her fingernails, in her shoes, on her shirt, and again ground into the carpet that is INSIDE my house even though she was playing outside.

    Let it go mama.

    And I really have been trying.  Messes make her happy.  The tactile input is helpful for her SPD (sensory processing disorder).  I’ve really, really been trying to just accept the mess.

    Today I was at Target getting some odds and ends.  I’m not an impulse shopper.  I only buy necessities and if I do I usually have a coupon or it was on sale.  I saw the dollar bins and I decided to take a peek.  I’m also not a window shopper, so this is unusual as well, but you know, I’ve become more flexible this summer and I don’t know what has gotten into me.

    I ran across foam stickers and my memory instantly recalled paper after paper that came home in Ashlynn’s backpack this year full of random papers that had some scribbles and foam stickers on them.  I would never buy foam stickers.  What a waste.  They serve no purpose.  You put them on paper and then throw the paper away.  What’s the point?  Something in me though remembered all of those papers and thought Ashlynn really likes these things.  I stood there awhile debating.  They were only a dollar, but it seemed like such a waste!!  But I think, Ashlynn really likes creating with them and (and this is my internal argument that allowed me to buy them) they are good for bilateral hand coordination since you need both hands and fine motor control to get the paper off the back.

    I bought them.  Good.  Ashlynn will practice fine motor skills.  I’m a good mama.

    I brought them home and she was happy.  Not overly happy, but happy.  She was busily creating when she randomly walked over to me and tapped me on the leg.

    “Mama, Mama, MAMA!!”

    “What honey?”

    “I love you!!”

    I’m stunned.  What on Earth prompted this?  And that’s when I looked a few feet beyond her to the messy table, backs of foam stickers littering my carpet, and paper after paper full of foam stickers.

    I gave her the biggest hug.  I might have cried.

    As it turns out, a good mess and me have gotten closer.

  • Early literacy skills: Print awareness activity

    Early literacy skills: Print awareness activity

    The other night I was reading this book to Ashlynn.

    If you’re not familiar with the “David” books, they center around the main character David who is mischievous and frequently getting into trouble.  
    These books are great for early print awareness!  As you can see, the print is larger and is written as though a child wrote it.  Ashlynn kept pointing out all the capital letters she recognized from her name.  Her favorite was /S/ and she would declare, “Look!  That’s in my name!”  This is great for transfer of early letter recognition skills. 
    The sentences are typically short, and contain no more than maybe 5 words per sentence.  On some pages, the words are separated onto separate bits of paper (see below).  

    The reason this is great is because you can get your child pointing to each word.  This doesn’t mean they need to be reading the word.  They just begin to get an understanding that those combination of symbols denote an orthographic representation of a word.  Ashlynn can’t read, but she is starting to get the hang of pointing to each word while she reads (from memorizing the book).
    As a bonus, the stories are relatable and entertaining to your child, allowing you work on oral language as well.
  • You play dirt with me?

    You play dirt with me?

    We took our annual Fourth of July camping trip to Glendo State Reservoir in Wyoming.   It’s a family tradition, so I decided to document her progress each year.  Last year’s experience can be found here: Glendo 2013
    This was only a few short days after our near drowning incident at her pool during swimming lessons.

    Glendo is a HUGE reservoir, and a lot of our time involves the beach.  I was worried about Ashlynn’s safety, and also if she would be too scared to go in the water.  The first day she kept her distance from the shoreline; however, the second day she walked to the shoreline and was watching her dad who was floating in the water maybe 10 feet away. Sensing she wanted to come in, he held out his arms.  I didn’t see him at first and my sister motioned to me that it looked like she was going to go in.  I went running to her, but stopped just short behind her.

    I saw my husband with arms outstretched encouraging her to come to him, and then I saw her little shoulders rise up big as she took a deep breath, and she marched in the water.  She marched through the waves, keeping her balance, until she fell into his arms with a big smile upon her face.  He hoisted her up into a floaty with him to enjoy floating in the water under the warm sunshine.

    I looked on in awe.  She’s so brave.  Her character is quite astounding to me, and I’m her mother.  She faces challenges, fears, and obstacles head on.  She never gives up. She is determined and resilient.

    She also of course, rode our jet ski.  I wrote last year that she asked, “Ashlylnn play boats with daddy?” and this year, she announced proudly after riding, “I ride the je-si huh!”

    One of her favorite requests this year was, “you play dirt with me?”  imploring anyone who would listen to play in the sand with her.  No one had the heart to say no, so she made quite a few friends and suckered in quite a few family members!

    When it was time for fireworks, Ashlynn has historically stayed in the car.  However, this year, she again put on a brave face and ended up enjoying the show!  At times she would say, “that was too close!!!” but she never went back in the truck.

    I like documenting some of her milestones on the Fourth of July, Independence Day.  It’s so fitting since each year she becomes more and more independent.