Introduction - daughter with Apraxia

[Guest guest]

I thought I would take a moment to formally introduce myself and my

daughter. My daughter is 25 months old and was recently

diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech. We live in the Bay Area of

California and we had her evaluated at the children's hospital at

Stanford University. They said they were confident in making that

diagnosis even at her young age. has been in an early start

program since she was 15 months old because she was not babbling or

making sounds. Currently she attends early start classes twice a week

for 90 minutes each time. One day is a speech class with 2 other

children, teachers and parents and the other day is a class that

encompasses speech, sensory, listening, feeding etc... At the

recommendation of the Stanford docs, she also attends speech therapy

with a private therapist 3 days a week for 30 minutes each time. She

also attends preschool from 9-3 two days a week. A packed schedule for

sure!

has a twin sister with normally developing speech and a 7 month

old sister who babbles up a storm. We having been using fish oils for

some time and started NV a week ago. We have yet to see any results but

we have such a hard time getting even half of the dosage into her. We

are hoping she will be more accepting of it as the weeks go on.

is a very hard worker and loves all her classes and therapies.

She is very proud and happy and we hope these qualities will remain with

her as she grows up and faces her challenges. She has about 80 words

that she will say and has a vast amount of knowledge. Many of her words

are unintelligable but I undertsnad them. It is very hard when we are

in the car and she " talks " away and without seeing her or the context I

have no idea what she is talking about. Then she will just repeat the

word over and over while I try and guess what it is.

We taught both girls signing when they were very young and she knows

over 150 signs. This was a godsend with her though now she prefers to

imitate and say words (mostly pronounced wrong, but still exciting!) and

has dropped most of her signing. She has started saying 2 words

together and my favorite thing she says is " did it! "

I was very devastated when we got the diagnosis but after allowing

myself a good cry I got into proactive mode and researched and found out

what we can do at home to help . I am so happy to have found this

group because I love getting new ideas and just knowing there are others

out there who know what we are going through. I wish you all weren't

going through the same thing though.

I think people who don't have a special needs child have no idea what

goes on and how your whole life becomes consumed with this child and

getting them the services they need. I feel so gulity about leaving my

other kids with a nanny while I bring to various classes and

appointments. But my goal is getting to talk the very best she

can and my husband and I will do whatever it takes. I know you all can

relate.

Thank you for being a source of support, inspiration, and wisdom!

Vicky and