Practicing words on the boat

Corey's Day on The Farm

We had a blast at Corey's Day on the Farm. This is a free event for special needs children.
http://www.shoplocalbiz.com/silverdale/coleta/coreysday.htm

Ben got to ride a horse (3 times), learn how to rope a bull, ride a wagon, and pet llama's, baby goats, ducks, chicks, bunnies.

Here is Ben getting on a horse for the first time!

We met up with his SLP

Ben was asked to ride up front & steer the horses!

I hope we get to go again next year!

Progress Report

We started with a new (private) therapist a couple weeks ago. So we're now going 3 times a week for therapy. Ben has started to not want to go anymore. This morning he didn't want to get out of the car to go in. But eventually he did! This is the second time this has happened. It's hard having people in your face saying "fffffff" suck your lip under, put your teeth on your lip -"fffffff"
The "F" sound is really hard for him, but he does it for me at home much easier than he does at speech...so we'll keep working on it.
Today as speech with the school, the therapist wanted to work on his food issues. She brought strawberries & whipped cream. She had him pick one out, touch it, then gave him a small knife to cut it in half. She handed one to me, and she got one too... Ben started to look around and figured out she was trying to get him to eat it and he said "no!!" multiple times & wanted nothing to do with it. (He used to eat strawberries blended up). She thinks he definately has some oral sensory problems. We are going to make an appointment with the pediatrician to see if we could add some ocupational therapy in as well. The private therapist hasn't had much experience with oral sensory issues - which is disappointing...but she's willing to try some things with him.
Ben is making more of an effort to make his sounds understandable. He's really got the ending "ck, s, t, b, and almost has the sh" sound. But both my husband and I have been able to understand his sentences more. I think Ben will be glad to have a break for summer with the school therapist. Then we will just be going once a week privately. I'm hoping as he continues to get older, he'll be able to sit longer & cooperate! Sometimes it seems the more silly games during therapy , the more they loose him & he doesn't want to stop being silly. A more no-nonsense approach seems to be doing better. But I'm glad both therapist are willing to shift gears during therapy to get the best out of him. I'll try to post some videos later.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ApraxiaKids

Words

Ben had slowly started a list of words in therapy. These are what the speech therapist & I came up with based on the ending sounds & words he used often at home. Before therapy, Ben never said these with the ending sounds. From much repetition in therapy, Ben is now able to say all of them (except backpack) very well. The words are: Mop, hop, guitar, book, game, puppy, panda, backpack, and cup.

We have new words that the therapist added for us to work on:

hot, pop, night, day, bee, me, key, pee, tea, bye, my, pie, tie, boy, toy, ed, add, oat, cow, guy, bay, day, may , pay, kay, bow, toe, go dough, eat , ate, at, do, boo, car, we , up, ape, it, two, eight.

I'll try to get more of those on video another day. The school therapist uses Pam Marshalla material. She is based in Seattle and considered one expert on apraxia. Her idea is to work on vowel sounds mostly. So each therapy session, the therapist has Ben say all the vowels, in their long & short variations & then she puts too together.. like short a - i .

Every expert has their theory. There is The Kaufmann method, Prompt, Pam Marshalla.. That's all I really know of. I'm very interested in the Kaufmann method - it seems to make the most sense.. break down a word, then build it back up thru lots of repetition. Get them to say the first part of the word, then add on each part, until they can say it all together. I don't know much about Prompt yet. Really though, whatever gets Ben talking in a positive way is what we'll go with.

Small, but Wonderful Improvements

This was our 6th week in therapy with the school SLP. She focuses on getting him to say certain words correctly. So far they all end in a "p" or a "t" . One of the first words was "Cup." Ben always said it as "Cu" , completely negating the end sound. So during therapy she kept repeating the "pah" in P. So then he started pronouncing it "cupah" which was fine, at least he was getting the "p" sound in there & she would work to refine the "pah" later. So at home, it was "cupah" . This lasted for a few weeks. But last week, I asked him if he drank all his water & he said "ya, dwa waw ouw my cup" and his cup word sounded beautiful!!
We've been reading "Hop on Pop" a lot lately, as other words from his speech list on in that book. He says "cup, pup, pop, hop," all perfectly. Now sometimes when he gets going in a sentence, he might revert back to dropping the ending sound.. but for the most part , he's getting it!
The school therapist was very pleased with his progress, especially at last weeks session. He opened his mouth beatifully & showed her how good his "p" sound is! He's also improving his "t" sound, but it still needs some work.
I'm grateful for the progress he's made thus far. I think he is starting to understand that he isn't understandable. As I've been doing these videos of him talking (& there are a lot more that I just haven't added on this page), he is very interested in listening to himself. When I show him the video, he looks a little puzzled. Almost as if, he's thinking "that's how I sound?" Because with apraxia , they know what they are saying or want to say.
Another positive note, I finally have a private therapy evaluation at the end of the month.

This is after my son woke up from his nap.. this is when he is the most talkative. We will usually sit down & he'll talk to me for a good 15-20 minutes straight before he wants to go play.

IEP's

IEPs by Dr. Seuss

Do you like these IEPs?
I do not like these IEPs
I do not like them, Jeeze Louise

We test, we check
We plan, we meet
But nothing ever seems complete.

Would you, could you
Like the form?
I do not like the form I see
Not page 1, not 2, or 3
Another change, A brand new box
I think we all
Have lost our rocks.

Could you all meet here or there?
We could not all meet here or there.
We cannot all fit anywhere.
Not in a room
Not in the hall
There seems to be no space at all.
Would you, could you meet again?
I cannot meet again next week
No lunch, no prep
Please hear me speak.
No, not at dusk. No, not at dawn
At 5 pm I should be gone.

Could you hear while all speak out?
Would you write the words they spout?
I could not hear, I would not write
This does not need to be a fight.
Sign here, date there,
Mark this, check that
Beware the students ad-vo-cat(e).

You do not like them
So you say
Try again! Try again!
And you may.
If you will let me be,I will try again
You will see.

Say!I almost like these IEPs
I think I'll write 6003.
And I will practice day and night
Until they say"You've got it right!"

Author is Unknown..found it at http://medsped.soe.umd.umich.edu/belinda/iepsbydr.htm

My first attempt to capture on video how Ben speaks. He's a bit more interested in the camera, then participating in talking to me...but you can hear him speak some. I'll be adding more later.

How we got here

I guess, looking back, the first sign of apraxia may have been my sons' eating/food issues. My son did fine with baby food. But as he was nearing his first birthday, I kept trying to get him to eat finger foods. He wanted no part in it. Even things like bananas, that was his favorite to eat mashed up - he refused to eat whole. He would try, and spit it back out, sometimes even gagging on it. So I continued mashing up all of his food well up until he was 17 months old. Even at 3yrs old, there are plenty of things he will not eat - but it's not the usual picky preschooler, it's more than that. He literally cannot stand the texture of certain foods. As far as his speech, at a pediatrician visit when Ben was 15 months old, we were told to contact an early prevention facility to see if he would qualify for therapy. He was jargoning a lot, but no real words except for the occasional "mama" or "dada". After a phone interview with the facility, we were told he was not delayed enough to require intervention at that time.
My husband and I were not at all concerned either. We felt he would talk when he was ready. And we continued to feel that way until he was nearing 2.5yrs old. He had maybe 50 words, but only 4 or 5 that were clearly pronounced. He would make long sentences and tell long stories, none of which was even intelligible. I knew it was a bigger issue than "he'll talk when he's ready" or "he's just going to be a late talker." No, it was more than that. He needed some help.
Since he was so close to 3yrs old, they told us to go through the school district to have him evaluated. We first met with the school speech & language pathologist, school psychologist, and school developmental preschool teacher. They listened to him talk, they asked me questions, and decided that he had some needs and they would do a full evaluation on him. But we needed to wait until he was actually 3yrs old. So we waited a few months.
The testing process was annoying. Expecting a 3yr old to sit for up to an hour and answer questions, look at pictures, demand answers..it was all kind of frustrating. I was proud of my son sitting for 45minutes straight on one day. But then I was told he has a short attention span..go figure. I stated to them that a normal attention span for a 3yr old is 15min & he well exceeded that!
But the first time I heard "apraxia" was during that process from the SLP. I went home and searched for anything about it. After reading it was a neurological disorder, and the seriousness of it, I felt deeply sad. He did have a lot of the signs, including the food texture issue. I felt it was definitely a possibility, but I kept holding onto what the SLP said to me - that it's just a guess based upon his symptoms and by no means was a definitive diagnosis at that point.
We started speech therapy with the school , while also waiting for insurance authorization for private therapy. Our school therapist was very adamant he get private therapy. Ben's speech was considered only 10% intelligible. 10%!!
During the therapy sessions, as I listened to Ben, the signs of apraxia kept arising. For the most part, Ben only has the beginning sounds for every word. For instance, water is "wa", dog is "da" , milk is "ni" . He will also switch vowel sequencing. For instance if asked to say "puppy" he will usually say "pee puh." Our school therapist has since confirmed his apraxia diagnosis. We have been in therapy with her for about 6 weeks now. We are currently awaiting an opening for private therapy as well.