2009 National Conference on Childhood Apraxia of Speech

I went to the CASANA* conference and the only tangible thing I got was a wristband that says “Every Child Deserves a Voice.” Boy, the learning and memories, though! They will change our lives. I have so much to say, and I’ll be writing about a lot of it in the coming days. Next year’s conference will be in Pittsburgh, so maybe that’s more convenient for your family, and you can start planning for that. I seriously can not recommend it highly enough. Having a huge room of people all with the same intent (“How do I help my child/my client/my grandchild with apraxia?”) feels so different. They all understand.

Just to show how intense it was, these are the lectures I attended, each 1.5 hours long. Note the veritable listing of Who’s Who in the Apraxia World as presenters:

• Session 104: Effective Strategies for Your Next IEP Meeting
  (Charlie Fox)


• Session 201: Multi-Sensory Therapy for Childhood Apraxia of Speech: Having Fun while Building Speech (David Hammer)


• Session 302: Enhancing Social Language Skill Development in Children with Apraxia of Speech (Margaret (Dee) Fish)


• Session 401: PROMPT: The Nine Key Treatment Components and Their Use with CAS (Deborah Hayden)


• Session 503: Incorporating Phonemic and Phonological Awareness in Speech Therapy to Improve Speech and Literacy (Amy Skinder-Meredith)


• Session 601: The Kaufman Speech Praxis Treatment Approach: Shaping Successive Word Approximations (Nancy Kaufman)


• Session 701: Introduction to Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing for Speech Motor Learning (Kathy J. Jakielski, standing in for Edythe Strand)


• Session 803: Planning for Preschool and School Age Transitions for Children with CAS (Sharon Gretz and Kenda Hammer)

Much more to follow.

* Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America. I call it apraxia on my blog, but the real name is CAS, Childhood Apraxia of Speech. That differentiates it from the other major form of apraxia, which occurs in adults after a stroke.

Week 4: Jog, Swim, Tennis

Total Jog: 5
Total Swim: 4
Total Tennis: 3

Played tennis with a wall! Only lost one ball on top of the school roof, even! I think my tennis game has improved dramatically from "wow, so sucky" to "only somewhat sucky" -- great strides, my friends.

Ran twice. The second time I did 4 miles in a pathetic jog/walk. Took me an hour, but the weather was lovely.

For those of you not grasping the non-athletic abilities of Bluestem, please note that there are NO underwater turns in her swimming. Nor really any sense of dignity or style. She regularly switches in the middle of a lap from old-lady-breaststroke to laying on her back and weakly kicking her feet. She generally does not put her face in the water during her so-called freestyle laps. Are we getting the picture here?

Lastly, I did a My Fitness Coach (Wii) session that was set to "upper body," and my legs ended up so sore that I could barely go up and down stairs for 3 days. Yep. I'm ready for my first Ironman.

Words, words, words

I’m mentally preparing myself for two full days at the apraxia conference. This essay just helped me turn a corner. I’ve now starting called Nea’s problem a “speech disorder” instead of a “speech delay”. Seems much more accurate and appropriate, especially now that she is 5.

Funny, really. I know the definition of apraxia: "Apraxia of speech, also known as verbal apraxia or dyspraxia, is a speech disorder in which a person has trouble saying what he or she wants to say correctly and consistently. It is not due to weakness or paralysis of the speech muscles (the muscles of the face, tongue, and lips). The severity of apraxia of speech can range from mild to severe." It’s been staring me in the face for a few years now. And yet I still called it a delay. Wishful thinking or just ignorance?

I wonder whether using this terminology earlier would have cut down on the annoying comments (previously discussed).

Week 3: Jog, Swim, Tennis

Total Jog: 3
Total Swim: 3
Total Tennis: 2

Swum in a lake, even! Played tennis with a friend! If by “played tennis” you mean, “just volleyed awhile because I’m not good enough to bother keeping score.” I’m still behind on my tennis, though. I’ll have to try to catch up before the next heat wave hits later this week.

And did the 10-minute advanced boxing on the Wii Fit and couldn’t lift my arms for two days.

My two great loves, together at last

It's my first year growing pole beans. I started them on the East-facing wall of the garage on some trash-picked trellis things from last year's haul. That N wanted to throw out ages ago. He put some eye hooks into the soffit and hung twine since the trelliseses weren't going to be tall enough. The question now is, do I seriously need to get a stepladder everytime I want to harvest?! I can see why bush beans caught on. Those soffits are 10 feet up and the beans are still climbing.




They sure are tasty, though. I have lazy housewife beans from my aunt and "magic" beans from my neighbors. They start green/purple but turn green when you cook them.

I also have yard-long (aka asparagus) beans, but they aren't doing a darn thing. Yet.

Week 2: Jog, Swim, Tennis

Total Jog: 2
Total Swim: 2
Total Tennis: 1

The heat index was over 100 nearly the whole week, so although there was talk of tennis, my friend and I decided we’d rather live. I did My Fitness Coach once, too. So, not ideal but not awful, considering the weather, how much overtime I worked, and a certain birthday party that needed to be organized and held. See? I have excuses! Those are pretty solid, right?

Eating locally

I made $400 off my butternut squash today. I know, it sounds crazy. But they had a photo contest at work, and I submitted 2 squash photos and won first and second place! Clearly I am a fine and talented photographer.

Well, it would seem more impressive, except there were no other entries in the “green initiatives” category. Takes a little bit of the thrill out of it, except that, hey, $400. Then I won a book in a raffle. That was a little embarrassing.

And! This feels like a dream, but it actually happened. I presented on “eating locally” at my Big Corporate job. It went over big. Huge interest, lots of questions, and I had a quiz and corporate-sponsored lettuce seeds to give out. There’s talk of starting a gardening discussion forum. On the Big Corporate Internal Web Site. Turns out that public speaking isn’t as awful if there’s something you really want to talk about. (see previous Big Corporate Public Speaking Experience).

I discussed the Obama white house lawn vegetable garden, CSAs and farmer markets (Chicagoland 2009 Schedule), and the buy-these-organic dirty dozen. And how to know which foods are in season when at the markets.

Then I plugged Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver some.

I also went with the logic of trying to make gardening sound easy, so we discussed perennial fruits (strawberries, rhubarb, grapes, kiwi vine, raspberries), fruit trees (apple, pear, peach, cherry, serviceberry, etc.), vegetables (asparagus) and herbs (chives, oregano, sage, mint, thyme) for zone 5.

I have to figure out how to make a living at this.