Apraxia, blah blah blah

Hi. Wow. It's been a while, huh. And this will also be a lame short entry. 

Don't have the full report yet, but we did neuropsych testing on Nea again. She's nearly 11 now. The last time was four years ago, in first grade. Since she's about to go to middle school, it's that time again. And we will do it again in high school, sophomore year, to make sure her accommodations will be current for college.

Short version: working memory is still a big issue. She also has vision tracking problems, which no doubt are apraxia-related. Should have gone to that seminar I skipped. Damn. Contacting the people I know who ran that, though, so I hope to obtain a copy of the presentation. Or at least some names of decent eye doctors.

Another thing on the summer's to-do list: get a better hearing test for Nea. Have the name of an audiologist recommended by a friend. 

The party never stops. 

Reading with apraxia

So, Nea is 10 now. She's having a great year at summer school (ESY). Finally a teacher who is teaching! He's reading real literature with them and introducing new concepts. He's doing fractions and teaching them about improper fractions using visual representations. Then he made some YouTube videos to show us parents what that means! Unbelievable.

 

This is, shockingly, Nea's 7th year in ESY (we skipped last year because we were traveling). And it's the first year I'm not disgusted with what a waste of time it is. She has always enjoyed going, though, and she gets a little speech therapy every week (45 minutes, half of her school year IEP amount), so we kept sending her.



 

 

At home we've been reading Junie B. Jones, gearing up for a book club with Nea's best friend, who lives across the street. Nea is reading chapter books! There was great rejoicing! And she's very excited about book group. Let me just tell you, when your friend helps motivate your child to read, that's the best kind of friend. Thank you, Beth! You are a gem.

 

Some people don't like Junie B. Jones books because they are written in the voice of a kindergartener with poor grammar. Poor past tense verbs, etc. What gets me is that the teacher doesn't know the difference between "good" and "well." So annoying. But if we weren't reading this book, I wouldn't know how well Nea understands adverbs! So instead of reading what the book says ("So listen very careful."), Nea reads, "So listen very carefully." And my heart sings.

Apraxia update and advice for parents of children with apraxia

Someone recently asked me for advice on their newly diagnosed child. Here's sort of a brain dump of thoughts.

Update

Nea is 9 and half. She’s a June birthday, so she’s one of the youngest in her 4^th grade class, which is my greatest regret. I should have held her back, but the school was not supportive, and I didn't want to call lawyers in. She’s about a year behind academically, which is much better than a few years ago. She can spell words like “family, students, those, running.” Not bad, considering she still has trouble with TH, J, and R. Also, her short vowels continue to be an issue. Our school SLP (90 minutes a week) and private SLP (60 minutes a week) work together closely.

I asked our private SLP (who is FANTASTIC. Keep looking until you find someone with experience in apraxia.) recently what Nea’s long-term prognosis is. For the first time, her answer was 100% intelligibility! Imagine my joy. She’s not there yet, but we keep working towards it.

One thing that we emphasized very early in her life was, "I don't understand. Can you tell me another way?" This has really paid off. She uses gestures, she tells us context, she puts the word in a sentence.

What I noticed over time was that she wouldn't get easier to understand even as her speech improved, because she was using more complex ideas, abstract concepts, etc. It was helpful that she was used to explaining herself in different ways.

That's maybe the hardest thing about having a kid with a huge speech problem. For years you don't have any view into their inner thoughts. You only get small clues into what's bothering them. And it sucks that everything is such a struggle. Even now she still has to repeat herself a few times every day to us, and we understand her better than anyone else.

We just had her annual IEP, and I needed to put together some speech samples for our private SLP’s report. Here’s what I sent:

A few random thoughts from Nea:

• How the people take it out anyways? 
• How many people there are in Africa?
• Where you teach German school?

 As you can see, there are lingering grammatical issues. I asked her what the perfect summer camp would be and she said:

Play with stuffed animals camp. 6 Flags America camp. Lombard pool camp to play in the water. Everything kids can do camp. There's no adults -- kids make their own decisions. And the last one is ... What are you writing? TV and video game camp.

Happiness is having a child that can say, “There's no adults -- kids make their own decisions.” It was totally understandable, even with articulation errors. What a great sentence.

Nea is in the other room practicing her drums for band. She finally learned to ride her bike at 8 years old. My greatest hope is that someday she enjoys reading. J

Advice for parents of children with apraxia

Having a special needs child intensifies your worry, your frustration with friends and family, your fear. It’s hard on our hearts, our marriages, our social network. Here’s what I wish I had heard 5 years ago:

Forgive yourself. Yes, you could always do 10 more minutes of speech practice, but your main role in your child’s life is PARENT. No one else can fill that role. Nea is a massive cuddlebug. I assume it’s what she needs to help her function in her stressful life.

Think of it this way: if you can make your child happy and make sure he/she continues to work hard in speech and academics, that is your greatest gift to him/her. Nea loves going to school, and she works hard every day, she’s a very happy child, and I consider all of that pretty damn important.

Advocate at school, getting all the services you can for him/her. Educate yourself on what services are available. What are other parents getting for their kids? Never take the school's answer as a final answer. They may say no one receives more than 60 minutes a week of speech therapy. That statement is not legal. They must provide services as deemed necessary for your child's individual needs. Ask for everything in writing. 

If people in your life are not supportive, try to build a new support system with other parents with special needs kids. My Facebook feed is full of CASANA posts. Try to find a local group of supportive parents and meet up once a month.

I know you want a crystal ball. No one knows what the future holds. It’s a very hard path we’re on. Be kind to yourself.

Beware of nutritional supplements promising miracles

Oh, gosh, what a shock: 

A dietary supplement aimed at children with speech delays is being deceptively marketed by NourishLife, LLC, and may be hazardous to children’s health, according to findings by truthinadvertising.org (TINA). TINA, a nonprofit based in Madison, CT, has alerted the company and is filing complaints with federal and state regulators.

They left a comment on my blog once. I deleted it, and posted this: 

Just don’t shill your shit on my site, asshole. I've got enough medical related expenses right now without someone preying on a parent’s hopes and dreams with false promises and testimonials. Fuck right off.

A reminder that the FTC says:

Dietary supplements may seem like harmless health boosters. But while some have proven benefits, many don't. Unlike drugs, dietary supplements aren't evaluated or reviewed by FDA for safety and effectiveness, and even "natural" supplements can be risky depending on the medicines you take or the medical conditions you have. In recent years, hundreds of supplements also have been found to be tainted with drugs and other chemicals. Always talk to your doctor before you take a new supplement, and avoid any supplement claiming it's a "cure."

Eat healthy unprocessed foods as much as possible, and save your money.  

Edited to add: this press release went out in March, but I just heard about it now. Spread the word!

Easy reader books

Our library at some point decided that since every publisher has its own ideas about how to rank reading difficulty levels, they would have their own system. So, our easy readers go from yellow to orange to red to light blue. After that, you move to chapter books. Unfortunately, most easy reader books are awful. Just horrible crap. And that is why, my friends, Dr. Seuss made a fortune. His books are entertaining without being too difficult. Most authors are total shit at this. A new contender in the field is Mo Willems, with his wonderful Elephant and Piggie books. Sadly we didn’t discover them and/or they weren’t published yet when they would have been truly appropriate for my kids. But we read them anyway. Good fun.

Nea has finally graduated (third grade, 8.75 years old) to the light blue books. Maybe that’s why the quality is slightly better. The first one at this level that blew my socks off was No More Monsters for Me! by Peggy Parish. 64 pages, and I was gripped by the plot the whole way, as was Nea. You may think I’m overstating the case, but no, really, I swear. So I checked to see what other wonders might await us from Ms. Parish. I had no idea she was responsible for the awful Amelia Bedelia books. I thought they were dated when I was a kid. But she’s got a few others, so we’ll be checking those out.

Any other suggestions? Nea has made great strides in reading, but it’s still hard for her, and a good story helps so much. 

Technology and learning disorders

If your child has an IEP and any issues with learning, make sure your school is using the vast choices available in technology to help. I know it’s at least partially because of my pushing for a better curriculum that our district will be offering Co:Writer in all 6 elementary schools starting in the fall. See the product demo for info.

Here’s a writing sample from Nea using Co:Writer. There is no way she could produce at this level without this tool.

The rocket ship landed on the moon and the man got out. The man said one step for a man. The man said one leap for a man. The man go in the rocket ship. The man go back home.

Nea has been using Lexia and Symphony Math this year, and I asked whether it was available to us at home as well. We were the first in the district to ask and receive it. Just another free (to us) tool to use this summer.

We have not yet tried Khan Academy but will be using it with both girls this summer. It comes highly recommended, and it’s free. 

Our school district will have all kindergarten through second grade students using iPads this fall. Our school started piloting them two years ago, and now the program is expanding. I am, with the district administration, forming a district-wide support group for the parents of special needs children, and one of the first things I brought up was adding a list of iPad apps on the district web site. We need to communicate more widely what works in the classroom, so that the learning can continue at home. 

Low-tech, but worth mentioning: we received some unused workbooks from the school because I asked for more summer materials. They are from the mainstream math curriculum, but are the older versions that no one is using. You never know what you might get until you ask! 

Any other recommendations? What is your child using?

Apraxia and self-help skills

Twitter (via https://twitter.com/#!/YTherapySource) alerted me to a survey on self-help skills for special needs kids, being collected by an OT. I decided to give it a whirl. As I took it, I realized that this was a nice list to start working on. (Reminder: Nea is almost 8, and has apraxia of speech and also limb apraxia, affecting her fine motor skills.)

It was also a nice list to see things we’ve made progress on:

• Manages safety belt independently in vehicles
• Can receive and make phone calls (to her dad at work)

And then there were some items I’m going to give a pass for now:

• Knows the difference between putting out paper fires from grease fires
• Cleans up broken glass safely

Here’s the list, with my comments.

DRESSING SKILLS QUESTIONS

• Puts on and fastens a button up shirt  – We don’t do a lot of buttony clothing, but we should make sure she can do a button.
• Puts on and fastens tie shoes  – Forget it. When she’s older.

HYGIENE AND GROOMING SKILLS

• Washes, rinses, and dries hands well  – Key word being “well” – a comment that applies to this whole section
• Completes nose care well (blows nose)
• Brushes hair and manages tangles
• Brushes teeth well
• Flosses teeth well – OK, who am I kidding. Should work on.
• Obtains soap and hygiene products for bath/shower

FEEDING SKILLS

• Uses a knife to spread foods (butter)
• Uses a knife to cut foods

TOILETING SKILLS

OTHER FUNCTIONAL MOBILITY

PERSONAL CARE DEVICES

HOUSEWORK/CHORES

• Those sections she is age-appropriate on, or don’t apply

MANAGING MONEY AND SHOPPING

• Identifies the value of coins and bills  – working on
• Makes a simple purchase from a store or vending machine using cash with assistance

MEAL PREPARATION

• Prepares a cold snack (chips, fruit) or meal (cereal, sandwich) independently – Sounds like a really great idea!

PERSONAL SAFETY

• Can dial 911 in case of an emergency – We’ve spent so much time on learning our phone number that I’m not sure whether she can do this. Need to check.
• Follows safety rules when talking with strangers – working on
• Has stranger awareness when asked to leave a location with an unfamiliar person – working on
• Follows fire safety rules and knows family fire safety plan – should work on

TRAVELING

• Uses a key to unlock doors to enter house – should work on
• Follows basic road safety skills (crosses street safely) – working on

SCHOOL RELATED SKILLS

• Brings all necessary materials to school (homework, lunch, permission slips) – This section I’m willing to take the blame on. I’ve been taking papers out of her backpack and putting them back in. I need to stop enabling. It’s her responsibility.
• Brings all necessary supplies home to complete homework assignments or projects
• Completes homework and returns it on time

Also, I talked to our old babysitter, who is off getting a degree in special education (!), and she’s willing to work on getting Nea to ride her bike this summer. We’ve pretty much failed at this. Maybe she will be the lucky charm!

More apraxia news

Here's a school essay Nea did recently. Starting sentence ... "The other night I saw a twinkling star. I closed my eyes to make a wish. I wished that …"


(Nea's writing, as written)

Mom had a baby brutr for me. Baby are cute. I want hem to play with me. I will halp hem got the toys. I like baby bos to slep in my rom. I wile want to haf a baby bruthr.

(Nea's writing, translated)

Mom had a baby brother for me. Babies are cute. I want him to play with me. I will help him get the toys. I like baby boys to sleep in my room. I really want to have a baby brother.

In completely unrelated news, Nea lost three teeth in the last week. She looks like a hillbilly. Photo evidence provided. For a child that didn't get her first tooth until she was 14 months old, she's catching up pretty well.

What I look like

As previously stated, Nea (age 7) has limb apraxia as well as apraxia of speech. She has worked very hard on her handwriting, which is pretty good now, although still larger than it should be. Work in progress, like much of her life. But she can zip up her jacket. We have no intention of teaching her how to tie her shoelaces any time soon. Hey, if Daniel Radcliff is still struggling with it at his advanced age, why tortune her?

Anyway, here's a picture she drew on her iPad yesterday. It's me. Her people have had a robotesque look for quite awhile. I like them. Check out my biceps! Whooo! I do wonder whether I should have my ears pinned back, though.

Not in the original job description: SN version

As Robert Rummel-Hudson said in a tweet this week, "I resent the people who can't get to sleep because of all the hookers and blow, rather than parenting anxiety. Dicks."

How true that is.

Our wonderful SLP wanted to write a progress report for the school, especially since we have a new school SLP. She wanted me to answer the following questions/requests.

• What is Nea's average sentence length?
• What is her intelligibility rate when speaking with people who don't know her? Also, was her intelligibility really 10% a year ago? (Yes.)
• Provide some sample sentences she has produced recently.

My gut reaction for sentence length was "approaching 5." Did a little analysis during dinner (as parents do, ha ha!), and Mama's intuition was correct. 4.63 words per sentence on average.

Reflecting awhile, I went with 50% intelligibility. With the caveat of "context helps!" which it always does. If you know what the topic is, you will have much greater success of understanding her. I do think we have done a good job of teaching her circumlocution, and she uses other words or gestures to help her audience along.

We have also decided to leave her talker at school permanently. It's heavy, and she reached for it once all summer, when she wanted to discuss Earth as a ball. I have to say, Camp Invention (science camp) seems to have sparked her interest in science. Below are the sample sentences I collected at dinner. The science ones were all in a row.

Me go home morrow way? (I stay home tomorrow)
Me playdate with Bella?
Why Elmo drive? Too little!
Me hold it one more time.*

Astronomy:
Why people no feel turn around? (about the earth's rotation)
Wind in space now?
Why people in space on moon?
Why flag in space?
Flag in space right now?

Biology:
What is life?
What does plant make cotton?
Plant alive in fridge. Die in tummy?

And this is the child they pulled completely out of mainstream class for science and social studies last year. Sure, they wanted to spend more time on literacy and math, but come on! Anyway, she'll be joining the rest of class for those subjects this year. Which just happen to be units on astronomy and biology.

*Note: We are very much working on the "begin sentences with I" thing. Ugh!

Part 3: How Nea is doing, vis-à-vis apraxia and literacy

Nea is seven and will be starting second grade next month.



Looking back at May, there were many memorable lines from the IEP meeting. From the school psychologist: "Her IQ and other scores were normal! That's good news!" Wow. No shit, Sherlock. Did you manage to find those results in the massive, detailed, financed-by-us neuropsych report we gave you? Or did you come up with that yourself? She has excellent logic skills and does well on standardized tests as long as there is no language component.


From our mainstream teacher: "Oh, no, she's nowhere NEAR reaching the bottom of the class!" (Trust me, it was very clear in context that she didn't mean she's in the middle. She meant there was no prayer of Nea ever catching up.) A hearty middle finger salute to you, Mrs. M. Oh, and this gem: "She's not very good at non-fiction, is she?"


That was when I decided that we needed to focus on academics this summer. Because I know my special special snowflake is smart. She just needs a little more effort than your average kid. Not every mainstream teacher is talented enough to teach to multiple levels. I understand that. But it sure would be nice if they tried. On the other hand, I don't think she should be in the special education classroom as much as she is. It's not a good fit.


Anyway. Enough of the venting. On to more positive things.


The good news is that Nea is advancing at reading! And just as our wonderful SLP said, it's improving her speech. She's using more of the "little words" ("the" and "of" and so forth) than ever before, more full sentences, all that. People comment all the time on how much clearer her speech is. I'll post some examples soon. I haven't been able to transcribe any lately. I mean *blush* she says, "You're the best mommy in the whole wide world" but it doesn't come out exactly like that.


And it's not just the reading. Check out this great drawing she did recently.

Lightning McQueen

She's started with inventive spelling, which is a big milestone. On May 26th (I know the date because I tweeted about it) Nea wrote her first unscripted sentence. "I like you." All spelled right, too! Sure, she's behind, but this is more progress than we've seen before.



In her workbook, she and I counted out loud from 1 to 100 while pointing at each number. I actually wanted to quit twice, but she wouldn't let me.

So. My house is a disaster. My garden is a weedy mess. But it doesn't matter, because Nea is only about a full grade behind her peers, which is better than where we were in June.

Part 2: Our insurance saga - Winning!

My last insurance update was here.


Several months ago I heard from Blue Cross Blue Shield. In a chirpy voice, the nice lady told me that they were not only going to stop paying for speech, they had changed their minds and were TAKING BACK all the money they paid our SLP this calendar year. Under the very weak argument that they do not cover developmental delays after age 6. Nea is 7 now. She does not have a developmental delay. She has apraxia.

I'll be honest. I was a little pissed off.

So we lawyered up. Which was a great decision. Also, turns out ASHA* (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) has a very helpful form letter that argues persuasively (using that insurance-speak language that the insurance companies love) that apraxia is not a developmental delay. Please contact them if you need help fighting your insurance company.

Here's the money shot from their letter:

Verbal apraxia is not a developmental delay and a child will not outgrow this disorder. It is not an educational issue, but rather an issue of health and normal physiological function. Developmental delay describes a slower than normal rate of development, but verbal apraxia is a disorder.

The lawyer (who, I'll be honest, is ruining my deep suspicion and disregard for the profession) recommended we get nice, fresh letters of medical necessity from our SLP and pediatrician. These letters said the same thing as the letters we had previously submitted, but they were, you know, new. Plus she has fancy letters behind her name when she signs official documents. People respect that.

And then the clouds parted. The sun shone.

And therefore, ta da. BCBS is covering our ST again. With no visit maximum for the calendar year! (Let's go every day!) I'd frankly feel even more excited if I didn't think we'll have to go through it all again next year. Still, a victory for now. I'll take it.

Thanks to some help from my friends on Facebook (shout out to Steve and Lex! Smoochies!), we have a rewritten I Fought the Law by The Clash (from the point of view of BCBS)

Denying claims in the hot sun,
I fought Bluestem and...she won.
I fought the completely rational and justified MamaBear and...she won.

 *Next time perhaps I'll share my thoughts on the American Saddlebred Horse Association and the American School Health Association.





C'mon! Everybody sing!

Part 1: Summer homeschool curriculum - trying to catch up

I know y'all thought I was crazy when I told you our summer plans for getting Nea closer to grade level reading and math. I am proud to say she has made significant gains! In reading, anyway. I don't think the math has changed much, but given a choice between the two, reading would be my pick.



1. Hooked on Phonics has a giant gap between level 1 and level 2, so we are using the Scholastic Hello Kitty phonics readers, which have an emphasis on vowel sounds, which Nea really needs. We are also borrowing books from our SLP. They are The Learning Company's Reader Rabbits Interactive Reading Journey books, which don't seem to be available anymore, but there's always eBay.

Sample page from book 34: Sam hit the ball. It was a bad hit. See Nan with the ball.


Like most early readers, it's a snorefest, but them's the breaks.

2. Educational iPhone and iPad apps we like are: math bingo, word bingo, rocket math, sight words, stack the states (for Boo)


3. Summer Bridge Activities workbooks -- just discovered all the online games and iPad apps, so we'll be using those soon.


4. Earobics

5. Working on calendar (days of the week, months of the year), time, and money

6. And the usual focused activities assigned to us by our wonderful SLP.

Apraxia update

This is it, people. This is the huge blog post that I've been putting off all summer. It's turning into such a monster that I'll be covering recent news in three parts, in the next few days.


Part 1: Summer homeschool curriculum - trying to catch up


Part 2: Our insurance saga - Winning!


Part 3: How Nea is doing, vis-à-vis apraxia and literacy

Apraxia stories

Part 1: This never gets easier
Nea (coming up on 7 years old) has made a lot of progress in the last 7 months with our new SLP. You would think this would mean that she's easier to understand, but as she improves, the number of possibilities for what she's talking about also increases, so it's actually harder to follow her in conversation at times.

We were hanging out in bed the other morning and she said, "Keemo weet." I thought she said. "Three more weeks" so I said, "Three more weeks of what?" Finally figured out she was talking about Cream of Wheat. As her breakfast choice.

Trust me. Her "Three more weeks" and "Cream of Wheat" sound exactly the same. However, she can say "oatmeal" very well.

Part 2: You'd think I'd be better at this by now

Setting: birthday party at a park, chatting with two moms I don't know. They are very nice, and we are enjoying the crazy warm sunny day.

Nea comes up and tells a story in her usual blabber. She sounds like a slightly delayed two-year-old. "Me … go … dere … bad guy … up!" etc. Her words and phrases are improving, but when she tells a longer story it all falls apart. I don't concentrate fully on what she's saying, as I feel very self-conscious on her behalf, which is distracting. I repeat back some of it ("Oh, you ran fast? To the tree?") to help the other listeners, who I know can understand nothing.

One of the moms: Oh, is she speaking German?

Me: No, she has apraxia.

Other mom: What's that?

Me: It's an oral motor coordination … thing.

Long silence.

Me: But she's making a lot of progress!

Nea doesn't say anything. Then she runs off to play.

Certain values of Easy Street

Six months ago when Nea turned 6, I called Blue Cross Blue Shield. I knew that insurance companies often use a little BS move, in which they stop covering speech therapy at that age, claiming that apraxia is a developmental delay. Which it is NOT. More here. They said everything was fine then. Great, I said to myself.

Then we made a mistake. In my 2010 health insurance plan, BCBS covered speech therapy up to $2000 per year. We were going to be over that by just a little bit. (Should have just coughed up the difference. Who knew? Hindsight.) So our SLP wrote a letter of medical necessity (it's a thing of beauty with lots of big words), included a bunch of medical records, and BCBS denied it. Which, it turns out, means that they were denying any ST for Nea forever and ever, amen. Not. Cool. I got the news a day or two before Christmas, and frankly, I was in no mood to deal with it. I called BCBS once before the end of the year and did a little half-hearted protesty thing, but you gotta be in the mood, y'know?

So I called yesterday. Forty minutes later, our file was going for re-review. The nice lady said, "We'll call you within 30 days with the results." I rolled my eyes and took notes in my binder. At 3:00 THAT SAME DAY I got a call back from her. It wasn't overturned, but she gave me the key phrases we should use in the next letter. Apparently our SLP didn't call it verbal apraxia in her session notes, and didn't mention specifically that Nea's gap between receptive and expressive language is huge. Whatever. I'm not worried about it at this point. We have to jump through a couple hoops, and we'll be back on Easy Street. For values of Easy Street that include having a 6.5 year old who can't pronounce her last name.

Yeeeah. That's not a good fit for us.

Ever feel like the world conspires against you? I've thought for awhile that Nea has something else going on other than her apraxia. Apraxia doesn't explain why it first took her forever to learn her shapes and colors (to the point where I had her tested for color blindness) and then forever and a day to learn her letters and numbers. And she is very inconsistent from day to day on what she remembers.

I'm guessing she has at least ADD (it runs in the family), maybe also a memory problem or an executive function problem. Who knows, except that she is very clearly too smart to be having this much trouble learning. And she is falling further and further behind her peers.

So I decided it was time to have her tested. Schools don't generally do this kind of testing. ADD falls in the medical realm, and schools test for dyslexia, etc. but it's not as exhaustive.

I started by asking a friend whose child just had some neuropsych testing done. Turns out their doctor is going into active military duty, so she's not taking new pediatric patients. Her office recommended another place. I called them. They gave us two appointments, but clearly didn't think one of their doctors was better suited than another other. Really? I have a 6-year-old child with a severe speech disorder and that doesn't call for a little specialization for neuropysch testing? Huh. On a whim, I googled that office. I looked at the extremely Christian mission statement and the different doctors' descriptions. One of the biographies said, "Sees adults for Biblical Conflict Resolution, etc." and "learned how to address interpersonal conflicts in a Biblically faithful manner." Yeeeah. That's not a good fit for us.

After school I saw another friend whose child was recently diagnosed with ADHD. So I asked her for a recommendation. She gave me a business card. I called them up. Turns out for only a few thousand dollars (mostly not covered by insurance) I can get my kid some very questionable woo-woo therapy! Yeeeah. No.

Who knew this was going to be so hard? Anyway, I got some recommendations from our pediatrician. I haven't called them yet, though. They'll probably end up being batshit crazy in some other unique way. I'm sort of looking forward to it.

Literacy. I'm a fan.

Nea will learn to read if it kills me. And it might. TBD. I said to N recently that I want her to love to read, and then I burst into tears. If there's one thing I want my kids to have it's a love of reading. Empathy? Whatever. Athletic ability? Like I care. A fulfilling happy existence? Well. That would be nice, but who's all fulfilled and happy if they aren't voracious readers? I mean, really. As if.

Anyway. My point is. Oh, right, my newest theory on how to get this kid to read. The problems are A) kids with apraxia generally have more trouble learning to read, since they can't sound out the words. B) I think she has dyslexia, based mostly on the fact that she works so hard but retains so little. Shapes and colors took forever to stick. Letters, too.

In case you don't have a kid who has been in kindergarten recently, the fairly new thing is "sight words." The words you should know essentially by rote repetition. Memorizing the shape of the letters forming the word.

So, let's just hammer home the 100 most commonly used words in the English language, yes? Yes! What a great idea! Before you read any further, take this little quiz. Can you name the top 100? It's fun! C'mon, take a break! Oh, right, you already were!

I haven't done the blow by blow to compare their answers to the Wikipedia entry. Feel free to do an analysis and report back. If you really need another reason to procrastinate something.

Profound apraxia at age 6

Nea turned 6 this summer. I've been putting off writing this post for quite awhile. Looks like the last update I gave on her speech disorder was in the spring.

Many times I have read "My apraxic child improved dramatically the year of kindergarten! Or at age 5!" It's a real trend. That's nice for those families, isn't it?

Things got really hairy for a few months. I struggled to understand her as her speech attempts became much longer and complicated. Some days I was exhausted by the time she went to bed. Those of you who have traveled to countries where you don't speak the language well know what that feels like.

But then a few things improved. One thing that helped more than you would think was that she started saying "A long time 'go". It doesn't seem like much, but CONTEXT is everything when you are trying to understand Nea. And knowing that we aren't talking about the here and now, or events of the day, helps so much.

I don't know. She has improved so much, but she has so far to go. If you ask her where she's going later today she says, "Eat-det Deah" (Easter Seals). Spongebob is Pon-Pon. If you heard her talk without seeing her you'd think she was maybe two years old. Talking on the phone with her is very difficult, as you can imagine.

Her handwriting is shaky. The pressure on the paper is very light. We spell things out and show her what letter to write and crawl through writing thank-you cards.

But then, the other day she told us that no boys were allowed in her room. And she does have a green belt in karate now. Maybe she'll be ok after all.

Odds and ends

I'm working on my next big post (the annual amazing trashpick!), but in the meantime, you'll have to make do with a few small items.

1. Nea read the word "look" in a new book yesterday. HURRAH.
2. She managed to get 19 books on her "would like to purchase" book fair list, despite an inability to talk or write. That, my friends, is talent. Getting some poor older child to write down 19 book titles for you.
3. I'm having a rocky start to the gardening season. The bad news: apparently sprouting beets and carrots is too hard for me. The good news: the Russian quince tree is blooming for the first time, and the planted-last-year Red Rome apple tree is, too. No action on the stupid HoneyCrisp apple, also planted last year. Peach tree, as previous reported, is going gangbusters.