]Re: Intense speech therapy ?

[Guest guest]

I agree here and many of us cannot afford a lot of therapy but.... we can do it

at home! MAKE SURE THAT YOUR SLP & OT GIVE YOU HOMEWORK!!!

I cannot stress this enough (sorry for yelling....)

Your son/daughter may have a good therapy program with professionals but.... do

you get homework that you practice with every day?

If not, try.... Make sure that you are spending a little time every day doing

oral-motor exercises, PT exercises and OT exercises. Your therapy $$ will go a

lot further and your child will respond a lot faster. Ideally, you would want

to take 2-3 exercises (make them short in duration ie. not longer than 5 minutes

an exercise preferably 2 or 3 min.) from each area (SLP, OT, PT) and then do

them over and over again about 3 times a day.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner. While you are cooking, he can do a few exercises!

Make them fun, be upbeat.... and you will get through this a lot faster and he

will progress a lot faster.

Particularly if your child ends up with global dyspraxia, this can go a long,

long, way to avoiding the problems.... daily work means that the brain will

change faster and respond.... The motto of a dyspraxia is 'practice, practice,

practice'. It is a lifelong issue for our kids and the younger they work those

neural connections, the better their body will be for a lifetime.

Janice

Mother of Mark, 13

[sPAM]Re: [ ] Intense speech therapy ?

In a message dated 1/12/2008 12:47:12 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,

cherylasun1001@... writes:

What is considered " intense " speech thereapy for a 2 year old? Can

anyone tell me how many times/week your child goes to speech therapy?

What do they do? Is it group, or individual therapy? Also, does

anyone else have a speech/OT group?

Hello-- my son is 3 1/2yrs old and this is his breakdown of therapies during

the week

Monday- 1 hour PRIVATE (one on one) Speech at home with SLP

Tuesday- 1/2 Hr (one on one) Speech

1/2 Hr (one on one) Physical Therapy

1/2 Hr (one on one) Occupational Therapy

Thursday- 1/2 Hr (one on one) Physical Therapy

1/2 Hr (one on one) Occupational Therapy

Friday- 1 hour Private (one on one) Speech at home with SLP

The Tues & Thurs sessions are at a Child Dev Ctr

As you can see everything is done one on one-- and he has no group sessions.

As of right now, we don't have him enrolled into any special preschool

programs where he might get a group session thrown in there or maybe not. I

believe that the one on one is definitely more effective, but if the child is

in

a school program either through EI or a school IEP, then they will most

likely be in some sort of group session

My son has more issues than yours does, so that's why there's more of a

necessity for formal therapy sessions, so it really all depends on the

severity

of their Apraxia.

Some kids " only " have Childhood Apraxia of Speech, which is the lesser of

all " evils " (pardon the expression)

then the next level would be in addition to that, having the Oral (or motor)

Apraxia, where the child shows oral motor weaknesses. That would require

more therapy than just the Apraxia of Speech since it would also involve the

oral motor issues in addition to the speech.

Then in addition to that, the " worse " level would be having the above two,

with what's known as either Global Apraxia or Developmental Dyspraxia.

That would require yet MORE therapy than the above scenarios.

The above is speaking in general and simple terms, and there are always

exceptions to the rule and some kids might have other issues thrown in there

as

well, so really, you can't compare what another child needs with your child's

needs. If you are seeing good results with what he's getting, then that

indicates that things are going well.

On a personal note-- one thing that I feel is VITAL for Apraxic kids, is

not just these " formal " therapy sessions where they are getting things in an

organized manner, but I feel it's VITAL to literally INFUSE them with their

language and speech practice.

The times I mentioned are my son's formal sessions, but in reality, he has

therapy pretty much all the time but just in different settings and set in

FUN and life situations etc.

not sure any of this helps-- but I hope it does

Becky

**************Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape.

http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aolcmp00300000002489