Transitioning Programs

We have started the process to transition Peanut from the Early Intervention Program to the Child Find program.  For us, this is both exciting and scary.  It is exciting because EI has a maximum level of assistance that they can offer and he already gets the maximum of 4 speech therapy sessions a month.  Child Find offers an infinite level of assistance based on the need of the child.  It is scary because we have the best SLP ever who is both prompt trained and works with a lot of kids with apraxia and we aren't guaranteed to get an SLP through Child Find that has the same expertise.  Traditional speech therapy techniques don't work for a child with apraxia so that would be very detrimental to his progress.

This is a very long drawn out process so while he doesn't have to transition until he turns 3 in March we started the process so that there wouldn't be any time between services.  We have competed the first step which was where Peanut and I met with a panel of people who would determine if they needed to get further testing for Peanut to determine his eligibility.  So we met with a speech language pathologist, a psychologist, a pediatric diagnostician, a social worker and a case manager (yes, this meeting was a bit intimidating) and after talking to me, reading what our SLP wrote up and getting to hear Peanut talk a little bit they determined that they don't need further testing to determine eligibility.  This made me happy because I didn't have to put Peanut through any more testing but at the same time it made me a little sad that they could tell he needed their help after only 10 minutes with us.

He is scheduled for a hearing test and we are going back to the pediatric ophthalmologist to see if his eye sight has corrected at all.  (We already know it is inevitable that he will need glasses but haven't determined when he will start wearing them.)

Classroom Visit

Peanut's SLP went to visit him at his preschool class.  He was so excited to see her and felt very special that he had his own visitor.  We prefer to use his weekly session as one-on-one time at our house to get the most out of that time as possible but also felt it important that she get to see him in a different environment.  She felt that he did a great job speaking clearly and that the other adults in the classroom understood him about 85% of the time.  That is a great percentage for a child with apraxia and it is probably that high because he only has to use a certain range of vocabulary in his school environment.  There is so much routine and familiarity that Peanut really only has to respond or communicate about his most insistent of desires.

While Peanut loves music, he hung back during music time partly due to the introduction of a new music teacher and partly because he had a friend to snuggle up with and sit with instead of participating.  It isn't clear which of those was the bigger factor.

All in all, she felt that he is doing well and adapting as needed to school.  She thought that his teacher was doing a great job engaging him and trying to understand him.  She is planning on visiting his class every other month or so to see his progress in a classroom setting.

Little Conversations

This afternoon I picked Peanut up from preschool (he goes twice a week from 9-12) and he came running up to me and hugged me.  Normally he says "mama home!" because those are the words that he has for "Yay, mama is here" or "Yay, mama came back just like she said she would".  But today he hugged my legs and said "Hi mama.  Baby nap today?"  I blinked a few times to adjust from what I had expected him to say and replied to him that yes, the baby had napped for me today.  Then he said "Good, that's good"

This was stunning to me.  He must have overheard me telling people that today was my coveted day when the boys were both at school and I didn't have to babysit anyone else's child from the preschool so I was hoping that the baby would take a long nap all morning to give me time to get things done.   He processed all of that and 3 hours later had words to ask me the question he wanted to ask me.  Oh and then he threw around all these new words in random order so I wasn't sure what point he was trying to make but obviously he had something to say.

Needless to say, it was a good talk.  I love being able to have good talk's with my Peanut.

I hate Apraxia

I don't use the "hate" word lightly.  But it is true, I hate apraxia.  It steals from my child and I hate it.  This week's speech therapy session went ok, but not great.  Peanut was a bit all over the place and hard to settle down to really work on his talking.  He flitted from one game to the next and if we tried to get him to work on words he didn't want to say he would just abandon the game and move onto something else.  But the reason that I just hate apraxia is having to watch him struggle.  We were playing a game and his slp asked him to say "take it" and he couldn't say it.  He kepts saying "tk it".  But the she asked him to say "take" and he said "take" perfectly but when paired with a simple word like "it" he loses the word.  This is because he has motor planned "take" but he hasn't motor planned "take it".  This is par for the course these days.  Peanut's vocabulary is constantly expanding but his sentence structures revolve around his motor planning.  So he will say "Sit you Mama now?" meaning "Can I sit with you now Mama?"  But if I ask him to say "Sit with you" just adding that "with" completely disintegrates his ability to motor plan the words he does know and he can't say the sentence.  I know that he is doing great and I know that he is just amazing in all that he has overcome but I hate what apraxia steals from him.

So needless to say we are still working on Who, What and Where but we are also trying to get the articles and prepositions into his sentences and into his motor-planning.  It is harder these days because if he doesn't want to say something he just skips that word that I have asked him to say and moves on.  We will prevail and I can't wait to say that Peanut is Apraxia resolved....we will get there.

2011 Northern Virginia Walk for Apraxia

These people are all heroes to our family.  We had a team of 23 people walk in the Northern Virginia Apraxia walk today and a bunch more who walked with us in spirit but couldn't actually make it this morning.  It was chaos and fun and exhausting and exhilarating.  The kids ran and walked and moved from stroller to wagon to stroller again.  We didn't walk the full 4.8 miles around the lake because we kind of thought that was quite a distance to tackle when 13 of our 23 team members where children and all under the age of 7.  Our team raised almost $400 for CASANA!  You are all Logan's Heroes today and forever.  Thank you all for the support and love that you showed our family.

And this guy, well he is the world's best biggest brother.  Peanut doesn't know it yet, but he has a protector, a friend and a teacher in his big brother.  Little Man ran and ran and ran and played and played with his friends and cousins while on the walk.  He was a champ about it not being all about him for a few hours and other than a brief fight over not getting to wear fancy clothes today he was an angel.

My personal hero is this sweet guy.  He walked and ran more than he rode in a stroller and was excited to finally be at his walk.  I don't know if he knew we were all there walking for him, but he knew that he was surrounded by people who love him.  He has so many words and has worked hard for each and every one of them.  He has the sweetest voice and an infectious smile.  Everyone that meets him walks away with a smile on their face because he is so genuine in his love for life.  

Speech Therapy - 9/12

Peanut was very energetic in his speech therapy session today which does not always lend itself to a productive session.  He was all over the place but his SLP is wonderful and just ran with him.  He would say words incorrectly but fix them easily and allowed his SLP to prompt him when he needed some extra help.  She worked on "come" and "money" and a lot of prepositional work like "on top" and "in basket" using our laundry basket and the Hi Ho Cherrio game.  Like I said, was all over so we didn't stick to one task for more than 5 or 10 minutes.  She is still amazed by the difference in his talking and how clear his words are now.

Sentences - he does much better with sentences that he structures on his own.  When asked to say a sentence he will pick out the words he wants to say or can say easily and leave the rest behind.  If we push him to say all 3 or 4 words it usually messes with a word that he does say.  The pacing card is still helping with this but I have to get better about not letting him slide with a "go park now" and need to force the "go to park now".  I have let it slide because when you just add that little bitty "it" it turns a perfectly said sentence into "go to tark tow".  But practice makes perfect.

This was the last session that Peanut's big brother will be here for since school starts tomorrow.  This is a huge relief as it is a big distraction for him when his big brother is doing something in another room like watching a movie.

I am going to continue to work on the "what", "who" and "why" and make him say more of the sentence than he chooses.  I am looking forward to a less complicated and less energetic session next week.  I think it will involve more playdough play since that is some of his favorite stuff to do.  (good thing Santa knows this and will be delivering an ice cream making playdough maker thingy)

Speech Therapy - 9/5

Peanut continues to make astounding leaps and bounds in his speech. He is fixing his words well using mostly visual cues and his pacing card to help clarify words and sentences. He is delighted in how much more people understand him and so he spends a lot of his time telling and retelling stories.

Things we are working on this week:

-keeping prepositions in place. Peanut tends to drop the prepositions in a sentence knowing that he can be understood with nouns and verbs. We are using his pacing card to get those prepositions back in his sentences.

-who, what, where, why. Peanut continues to use voice inflection and body language to ask questions. We are working on using the words "what" and "where" and "why" because they are generic words that can be used often and will help him while in his school environment.

- getting the "t" sound and hard "c" sound at the beginning of the word. Table is bable and come is pronounced dumb. He can say it with the pacing card or if we break it down to two words so just giving him as much practice as we can so that his muscle memory will kick in.

We only have one more speech therapy session before school starts. This will bring some relief because I won't have to deflect and defend our precious speech time from an over-eager talking big brother but it also brings some anxiety about how Peanut will be in the classroom without me to interpret for him. We are hoping he continues to speak up and doesn't revert to silence in a new environment. Which ever way it goes, we will be there for our little hero.