The Childhood Apraxia of Speech Conference

Well-back to the real world! While I was gone at the conference, Keelin was sick-ugh. As in "exorcist" style barf that required our car to be steam cleaned and detailed on the inside. Kris was a real hero and survived great-but boy, was he happy to see me when I got back from the conference!

The conference was really great. It was lead by Dr. AmySkinder-Meredith who is an Apraxia heavyweight. Definitely the real deal!Great presentation skills.

The conference confirmed the validity of Keelin's diagnosis. Her huge gap between her receptive language skill(understanding) and her expressive language skills (talking) is one of the primary hallmarks of Apraxia. The language that she does have is very short in it's presentation-in that she speaks in mostly two word or single word utterances as she "breaks down" in to unintelligble sounds, also known as "glottal stopping", when she tries to put together more words. There was a parent roundtable with Dr. Skinder Meredith after the first day and it was really interesting to hear how others are coping with this diagnosis. Most of the parents had kids with additional problems-sensory issues, genetic issues. Keelin has the reflux but that's nothing compared to what some parents are dealing with.

We learned some really helpful therapy techniques that I will share with Keelin's new therapist-her old one moved out of state, which makes me sad.

The fact that floored me most about apraxia kids vs. kids with other speech issues is the amount of time it takes therapy to work. A child with a phonological delay will take an average of 29 speech therapy sessions to be understood 75% of the time by a stranger. The child with apraxia will take an average of 151 speech therapy sessions to be understood by a stranger 75% of the time. The typical therapy treatment of apraxic kids is 4 times a week for several YEARS. And Apraxic kids are at a greater risk for literacy problems, also. Dr. Skinder Meredith is conducting clinical research in this area of study, and I will be following her results, I am sure.

I know this is alot of information-and if you have read this far, bless you. We continue to work day by day with Keelin and try hard to understand her and help ease her frustrations. She is a hard worker and a sweet girl and we love her so much.

CASANA conference on Childhood Apraxia of Speech

I wrote this on my hand on the plane -a return trip from Napa and the CAS workshop...........the meaning? The folks at CASANA who run this website, http://apraxia-kids.org are here to help. To lend a hand of support to children and parents that face this challenging diagnosis. This was a fabulous workshop up in Napa-and I literally just got home, but wanted to reprt that I received some excellent information from this workshop. I will put a higlight post together later-but in the meantime, suffice it to say I learned MUCH about my daughter's condition and what we can expect over the next couple of years. We have so much to be hopeful about!

Cheers to all-

Laura

Don't you monkey with the monkies..

How is that for your obscure Peter Gabriel reference? We just got back from our 6 day vacation in San Diego. We had a wonderful time! Jared and I rented wet suits and rode our boogie boards on the beach every day. We also went to the San Diego Zoo-which was a blast, and checked out a couple of museums at Balboa Park. I leave Thursday for the Apraxia of Speech conference. And I have been making GLASS! Yes, remember glass? I have a couple of shows coming up and my inventory is sad, but I have been getting my "mojo" back, which makes me happy.
After the Keelin brain MRI in may and then my medical issues right after, I was feeling pretty drained. That's an understatement, by the way. So I am happy to b back in the saddle again and will post pics of my new work...it rocks, btw

Ciao! Laura