Devin's Speech Project - Comments & Feedback

Re: Devin's Speech Project


WOW!!!! Your child is only 3 and you put together ALL THIS ALREADY?!!! Do you sleep?!!! I'm literally amazed by the wealth of information you shared Michael on that drop box. The love you have for your child shines through!!!

Thank you so much for all you've done to help your son and others, and for sharing here. Please also join our public group as well to share this on facebook http://www.apraxia.org or let me know if you want me to share it there for you. I'm not an SLP but there are SLPs here and there who can probably help with your awesome project. At least I'd love for them to jump in with suggestions.

About insurance claims being turned down as you wrote- I can totally help with that- please see this link

http://pursuitofresearch.org/2012/07/10/insurance-coverage-tips-for-speech-and-other-special-needs-therapies/ and also check out documents I have on this page

http://www.speechdiet.com which can help with IEPs etc.
Again -WOW!!!! If you didn't check this site out- big time you should!!!!
--

=====

Lisa Geng

President CHERAB Foundation
Communication Help, Education, Research, Apraxia Base
http://www.cherabfoundation.org
"Help give our cherubs a smile and a voice"


Thanks, this is a great project!

(Disclosure: I am a speech therapist.)

Another difference between your picture cards and what you might find in a traditional speech therapy product is that you have included vowel sounds. Kids with more typical articulation and phonological disorders tend to have trouble with consonants only, but apraxic kids often have trouble with consonant and vowel sounds.

For future extensions, you might consider adding words with the target sound in medial and final position. Some kids have an easier time producing the target sound if it's in the middle or at the end of a word. So your words for the k sound (focusing on the sound, not the letter) might include e.g.

cup (initial position)

pocket (medial position)

book (final position)

It is highly annoying that insurance can be so stingy when it comes to relatively cheap, but very effective interventions like speech, occupational, and physical therapy, while they throw away millions on ridiculous, expensive surgical procedures that have not even been proven effective.

I'm glad Devin qualified for early intervention - does a speech therapist come to his class to work with the kids?

by Leap Year on Sat May 04, 2013 at 11:48:52 PM EDT


Thank you from this Speech Therapist!

It took some doing, as I work from a Mac, but I was able to download the program. I am excited to share this information with the parents of children I work with :-)

I work with children ages 3-5 in the education part of Early Intervention. In PA, cuts continue to be made in the Department of Education; so we are gaining larger caseloads and fewer staff. In addition, children that might have qualified for speech therapy services on diagnosis of apraxia alone, now must meet strict evaluation scoring guidelines to qualify for services. Even if children are not intelligible in conversation/play or children are showing frustration in speaking, if they do not meet the scoring guidelines they do not qualify for speech therapy.

I see many young ones with apraxia and have seen the hard work that these wee ones do to make connections between what is in their head and what comes out of their mouth. Your presentations will be a wonderful addition to my work with children.

I truly appreciate what you've done and made available for children and their families! Thank you, again!

Peace, Hope, Faith, Love

by mapamp on Sun May 05, 2013 at 03:13:44 PM EDT



From: Chrislyn Yeoh [mailto:chrislynyeoh@]
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2013 3:48 AM
To: aloosecannon@fuse.net
Subject: Thank you for sharing

Hi Michael

Hope this note finds you well.

I came across your blog when i was searching for more info on CAS.

I have a soon to be 3 year old son (Ethan is born in July 2010) who is highly probable of having CAS. i am saying such as he is not formally diagnosed as such yet but our recent visit to a speech therapist is telling us he is very highly likely to be one. Like Devin, tests have shown that Ethan has no hearing issues and his understanding and comprehension is above his age yet speech wise he is very far behind. He knows what to say but is unable to produce the sounds required.

Like every parent that have a child of such, we are feeling sad ,worried and confused at this stage and begin to turn to the web to find more info and support to help our son. Btw we are from Malaysia and being in a developing country, we are very far behind in areas like this. The waiting list to see the developmental pediatrician here is indefinite even though it is private. We are still waiting to see one scheduled in Oct for an appointment we made in Aug last year.

I stumbled upon your blog when surfing and I am drawing strength from your experience and attitude. I know our journey is going to be long. I just want to say thank you for sharing the slides and story. We will try on Ethan definitely. We will continue to be a visitor of your blog and continue to learn more from you with your experiences with Devin.

Thank you again.

Rgds,
Chrislyn



-----Original Message-----

From: Jodie Lucci [mailto:jodieLL@]
Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2013 1:22 PM
To: Latetalkers@yahoogroups.com
Cc: aloosecannon@fuse.net

Subject: Re: [Latetalkers] Devin's Speech Project

Thank you. Those are very clever and must have taken you a long time to create. My son is 12 and also has apraxia and selective mutism. He has been intelligible to us since age 10 but others still have a hard time, if the conversation is not concrete and in the present. I tried the x slides with him and he was not turned off, the pictures were engaging and the sentences not too easy. He was able to read them. A few years ago he would have been repeating them.

Is this something you would like us to share with our speech therapists or just other parents?


Jodie



spearanta •

Posted 05/23/2013

Thank you for sharing. This is great. My daughter is almost four as well. She was dx with apraxia of speech when she was three. We had intensive speech last year, three times a week (during the summer she had ST 4-5 times a week) and I also worked with her at home. At 34 months she had 2 words mama and dada. Now she uses 3-4 word phrases spontaneously and she will be discharged from speech (scored 85 on the preschool standardized test for auditory, articulation and expressive language.) I was looking for something scripted so I can practice with her at home. I want to thank you again for sharing. This will work really well.

DD- born on 10/01/2009, GDD, FTT, Apraxia dx ( as of August 1st)





-----Original Message-----

From: Tanja [mailto:twosonsinc@]
Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2013 11:52 AM
To: aloosecannon@fuse.net
Subject: Re: Suggestions for Phonics and learning to read


Wow! I've been on this board for over 8 years and this just shows that some parents will go to great lengths to help their child. Good for you! You deserve a pat on the back.


My soon-to-be 10yr old boy has ASD and apraxia and like you we work hard every day to help him.
I just wish I were technically inclined line you:)

Tanja=



From: sassmail@
Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2013 3:29 PM
To: aloosecannon@fuse.net
Subject: thank you for devin's project

Dear Michael,

Thank you so much for your work. My granddaughter Sophia has a speech difficulty that doesn't seem to fall into any typical category like apraxia or autism.

She is 2 1/2 and very speech delayed so we sing the sound and names of the simpler nouns to her-- e.g. b-b-bee --and she really likes it and she likes to try to say the words

Your project is so great because there are many examples for one sound.... they say most great ideas are simple and that simple repetition of one sound like b or c has really helped my daughter and I bet it helps many others too.

Anyway I just wanted to thank you. Your sharing and generosity are exceptional and you have made a difference for us.


Gratefully,
Susan Steiner .




Re: Devin's Speech Project


My son was very recently diagnosed with Speech Apraxia. It has been a bit overwhelming for my wife and I. I have only scratched the surface of what you have offered here, and I really appreciate you sharing it, it has been one of the best references we have found yet. THANK YOU.

Eric Williams

June 6, 2013 5:53 PM
Selective Mutism Awareness (Discussion)

From andersongirls5

Re: Devin's Speech Project

6/13/2013

Hi Michael,

I found you on FB through a search for Selective Mutism. Our 7 year old daughter has SM. Why I am writing though is to tell you that our 12 year old daughter was diagnosed with Apraxia of Speech at age 2. We could always tell she was very bright. Even during the initial years she would follow multi-part directions like a child much older. So, although she had no speech I knew ( in my heart anyway) that one day she would be fine. Fast forward to age 6 and first grade-Christmas Vacation-she had a language burst where she suddenly started talking. Her articulation though not perfect was understandable. Her speech was fast and pressured like she had had words waiting a long time to come out. Fast forward to now. She is 12 years old....and although somewhat shy her speech is normal. She is profoundly gifted with an IQ of 160. She has a gifted and talented IEP and is high achieving in both math and written word. Way back when I would have never known she would turn out on

Devin's Speech Project - Comments & Feedback

To view or download Devin's Speech Project presentations at Dropbox (Click Here)