Re: Easy does it for Apraxia - does anyone have experience with this book?

[Guest guest]

Why would your private s/t drop you down to 1x per week. Why does she care if

you come 1x or 5 xs. Studies show very frequent sessions are what is needed for

apraxic children.I would start looking for another s/t. She sounds like an

idiot. My daughter goes to private s/t 5xs a week and gets 4 s/t at her

pre-school. If I were you I would print all the paerwork that shows what works

with apraxic children. You might even want to send a video of your child to

Kaufman and spend the 150.00 for a written eval. Let her know that your

child is only getiing 1 s/t a week. I did this and in my eval she wrote her

recommendations. We are flying to see her this week for a 4 day intensive. She

video tapes her sessions and you can bring it back to your therapists.

________________________________

From: lnarram <na681@...>

Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 9:10:49 PM

Subject: [ ] " Easy does it for Apraxia " - does anyone have

experience with this book?

 

Hi everyone. In anticipation of my son moving from EI to the public school's

speech therapy program (it is highly unlikely that he will qualify for the

preschool program since speech is his only delay) in November I am trying to

find a good program that I can use to work with my son at home. I have grave

concerns that the local public school speech therapy offerings will be

inadequate at best. He does receive PROMPT therapy via our private insurance,

but the therapist has dropped him to 1/week sessions.

Her reasoning for reducing speech therapy from two 30-minute session per week to

one 30-minute session was because he scored in the 48th percentile on the

Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation 2 (GFTA-2). My problem with this test is

that it appeared to judge him based on his ability to reproduce simple, single

words. His intelligibility is generally ok if he's only using 2 or 3 words

together. His intelligibility drops severely when he's stringing together

multiple sentences containing several words... especially when he's trying to

express complex thoughts. No one (including me) understands what he's saying.

The compound effect of increased errors and inconsistencies makes him

unintelligible. She did note this in her report to the insurance company but

still recommended only one 30-minute session per week. I'm ok with that right

now because he's receiving 2 hours of speech therapy per week under an EI SLP

who uses the Kaufman method; however, on Nov

13th that goes away and I'm left at the mercy of the speech therapists at our

local public school. Supposedly they're both trained in Kaufman, but I haven't

been able to meet either of them yet and I have no idea what the school is going

to be able to offer to him in terms of time... and I won't until well into

October.

To make a long story short (too late!!) I want to be prepared to supplement

whatever the public school does or doesn't have to offer. I did speak to our EI

SLP and she says she used to use Easy Does it for Apraxia (http://www.linguisy

stems.com/ itemdetail. php?id=37) when she worked for the public school system

for any child who was unintelligible and that it seems to work well for

everyone. I was just wondering if anyone else had any experience with it or if

others would recommend different books.

thanks!

-les

[Guest guest]

Its my 8dd who has the dx of Apraxia but I can tell you what happened with my

4ds. He received speech only services thru EI before he turned 2yrs old. We had

an excellent EI SLP who suggested I have him re-tested once he turned 3yrs old.

What he said is that the level of expectation for Articulation is very, very

different once they cross over to the Preschool Level!

He was 29 mos when we were discharged from EI. He tested at a 28mos level. When

he started preschool, I had him re-tested and he did qualify for Articulation

alone! Thats what I could suggest. Have your son retested once he's 3yrs old. He

may not qualify for preschool--but my son did qualify for 2x per week 45minute

sessions. I brought him to his sessions after his typical preschool.

All the therapists in my school system are trained in Apraxia so talk to them

before you rule them out as not being able to help your son. you might be

surprised.

>

> Hi everyone. In anticipation of my son moving from EI to the public school's

speech therapy program (it is highly unlikely that he will qualify for the

preschool program since speech is his only delay) in November I am trying to

find a good program that I can use to work with my son at home. I have grave

concerns that the local public school speech therapy offerings will be

inadequate at best. He does receive PROMPT therapy via our private insurance,

but the therapist has dropped him to 1/week sessions.

>

>

[Guest guest]

Hi Tara. Well, I do know what her rationale was... He already gets two hours a

week from EI (Kaufman) and, prior to last week, he got one hour per week from

her (PROMPT). The total was therapy for 4 days a week for a total of 3 hours.

Had he not been making such tremendous progress (going from only saying a

handful of words and only when heavily prompted to spontaneous speech - albeit

largely unintelligilble - 9 months later) then her recommendation to our insurer

would have been to maintain the same visit schedule. However, we're under a

self-funded plan and she must prove medical necessity to support her

recommendations. The insurer already knows what he's getting under EI. It was a

huge fight just to get them to approve services before he was 3 BECAUSE he was

getting services from EI. Our insurance is willing to supplement EI and

preschool services to a point.

As it stands currently, his therapy is 3 times per week for a total of 2.5 hours

between private and EI sessions so I don't feel as if his therapy is being

neglected. Our PROMPT therapist is the only reason he can now say a few of his

vowels. She's worked tirelessly with him. Our Kaufman therapist, although she

has made great strides in refining his problemmatic consonants, could never

figure out how to help him with his vowels. So that's where the division of

labor is. We use PROMPT where the Kaufman method doesn't show results.

I do think that the video evaluation is a great idea! It was something I

considered in the very beginning when I was having a heck of a time finding

anyone in our back-woods, backward area who practiced Kaufman or PROMPT, but I

guess it just slipped my mind. We travel an hour away (one way) to get to the

closest PROMPT therapist... and by some miracle (probably because she works for

the hospital system) she takes insurance. It's easy to recommend finding someone

else when you have a lot of other options in your area. Actually finding someone

qualified in my area (someone who wouldn't take over an hour one way to get to)

took many months of looking for a needle in a haystack.

Do you have any experience with the Easy Does it for Apraxia book?

thanks!

-les

>

> Why would your private s/t drop you down to 1x per week. Why does she care if

you come 1x or 5 xs. Studies show very frequent sessions are what is needed for

apraxic children.I would start looking for another s/t. She sounds like an

idiot. My daughter goes to private s/t 5xs a week and gets 4 s/t at her

pre-school. If I were you I would print all the paerwork that shows what works

with apraxic children. You might even want to send a video of your child to

Kaufman and spend the 150.00 for a written eval. Let her know that your

child is only getiing 1 s/t a week. I did this and in my eval she wrote her

recommendations. We are flying to see her this week for a 4 day intensive. She

video tapes her sessions and you can bring it back to your therapists.

[Guest guest]

That does make me feel a little better :-) However, our EI services coordinator

and our EI SLP know the therapists who will see my son and neither one of them

are particularly optimistic. They don't say that the SLPs are bad, they just

seem to have a hard time finding anything positive to say. I think it's a case

of 'If you can't find something nice to say about someone, don't say anything at

all. " Plus, our services coordinator says that the school he's zoned for has a

history of trying to bully parents into taking lower level services.

He's in a private preschool program twice a week currently. He's always so

excited to be there and he never wants to leave when I come to pick him up. I

think that's excellent for additional enrichment for him. We'll just have to

take him to the public school for his speech therapy when he turns 3 in a couple

of months.

For your son or daughter, did you use any additional therapy tools at home? Do

you know or have you heard anything about the Easy Does it for Apraxia program?

>

> Its my 8dd who has the dx of Apraxia but I can tell you what happened with my

4ds. He received speech only services thru EI before he turned 2yrs old. We had

an excellent EI SLP who suggested I have him re-tested once he turned 3yrs old.

What he said is that the level of expectation for Articulation is very, very

different once they cross over to the Preschool Level!

>

> He was 29 mos when we were discharged from EI. He tested at a 28mos level.

When he started preschool, I had him re-tested and he did qualify for

Articulation alone! Thats what I could suggest. Have your son retested once he's

3yrs old. He may not qualify for preschool--but my son did qualify for 2x per

week 45minute sessions. I brought him to his sessions after his typical

preschool.

>

> All the therapists in my school system are trained in Apraxia so talk to them

before you rule them out as not being able to help your son. you might be

surprised.

[Guest guest]

You can buy the Kaufman kit (Level 2) for use at home. Below is the link. It

is pricey ($220). That is what our SLP recommended we use at home with .

We haven't bought it yet though due to cost. You can also get the book " moving

across syllables " from the same company. It is also good and much less

expensive. Our slp loaned hers to us and I've been using it at home with .

Easy Does it for apraxia is also good.

http://www.superduperinc.com/products/view.aspx?pid=NS222

, mom to , 28 mos old

>

> Hi everyone. In anticipation of my son moving from EI to the public school's

speech therapy program (it is highly unlikely that he will qualify for the

preschool program since speech is his only delay) in November I am trying to

find a good program that I can use to work with my son at home. I have grave

concerns that the local public school speech therapy offerings will be

inadequate at best. He does receive PROMPT therapy via our private insurance,

but the therapist has dropped him to 1/week sessions.

>

> Her reasoning for reducing speech therapy from two 30-minute session per week

to one 30-minute session was because he scored in the 48th percentile on the

Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation 2 (GFTA-2). My problem with this test is

that it appeared to judge him based on his ability to reproduce simple, single

words. His intelligibility is generally ok if he's only using 2 or 3 words

together. His intelligibility drops severely when he's stringing together

multiple sentences containing several words... especially when he's trying to

express complex thoughts. No one (including me) understands what he's saying.

The compound effect of increased errors and inconsistencies makes him

unintelligible. She did note this in her report to the insurance company but

still recommended only one 30-minute session per week. I'm ok with that right

now because he's receiving 2 hours of speech therapy per week under an EI SLP

who uses the Kaufman method; however, on Nov 13th that goes away and I'm left at

the mercy of the speech therapists at our local public school. Supposedly

they're both trained in Kaufman, but I haven't been able to meet either of them

yet and I have no idea what the school is going to be able to offer to him in

terms of time... and I won't until well into October.

>

> To make a long story short (too late!!) I want to be prepared to supplement

whatever the public school does or doesn't have to offer. I did speak to our EI

SLP and she says she used to use Easy Does it for Apraxia

(http://www.linguisystems.com/itemdetail.php?id=37) when she worked for the

public school system for any child who was unintelligible and that it seems to

work well for everyone. I was just wondering if anyone else had any experience

with it or if others would recommend different books.

>

> thanks!

>

> -les

>

[Guest guest]

Hi ! Thank you so much for the recommendations. Our EI SLP has generously

let us borrow her Kaufman kit (level 2) so I've been copying all the cards for

when we have to give it back to her :-) I'll check out Moving Across Syllables.

thanks again!

-les

>

> You can buy the Kaufman kit (Level 2) for use at home. Below is the link. It

is pricey ($220). That is what our SLP recommended we use at home with .

We haven't bought it yet though due to cost. You can also get the book " moving

across syllables " from the same company. It is also good and much less

expensive. Our slp loaned hers to us and I've been using it at home with .

Easy Does it for apraxia is also good.

>

> http://www.superduperinc.com/products/view.aspx?pid=NS222

>

> , mom to , 28 mos old

>