Speech
Therapy - It Doesn’t Stop When You Leave the SLP’s Office
The
Kaufman cards flash before his wide, blue-green eyes that peer out from his
long eyelashes. Miss Kelly, the love of this little man’s life, is down at his
level, demonstrating perfect sounds and pulling out all of the skills in her
bag of tricks that she uses to help children speak. She is trained in the
PROMPT technique and touches his mouth, neck, back, and chest in ways that can
make the words fly out like magic, which makes a mother, like myself, get teary
in an instant. She uses hand gestures that help him say the sound on the end
and whispers “p” and “t” words.
My
son, Jake, is three years and five months old and was diagnosed with Childhood
Apraxia of Speech the day before his third birthday. Two days a week, on
Tuesday and Thursday mornings, he sees an apraxia specialist for 30 minute
sessions.
After
two months of intensive therapy, his mouth is cooperating more and the sounds
are getting easier to pronounce. But, it is still hard for him. His eyes still
tell me, ‘Mama, this is hard. No matter how many times I practice these words,
no matter how hard I try, it’s still hard to say the words that are screaming
in my head. And why, why, could I
say this word perfectly yesterday, but today it’s no where to be found?’
When
it’s time to leave, Jake gives Miss Kelly a hug goodbye and shouts out a loud,
perfect, “Bye!” He picks out his favorite sticker to take home and then
we are off. After we leave, it is business as usual. Preschool on
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, play dates, taking his brothers to and from
school and extracurricular events, grocery shopping, meal cooking, laundry ...
all of life’s little distractions rolled into a week that flies by in the blink
of an eye. To say the least, reinforcing the words he learns at speech could
easily get lost in the shuffle once we leave the SLP’s office.
When
we first started this journey, an SLP told me, “You are his mother. You are not his speech therapist. That is my job. Your job is to love and nurture him.” And for a
couple of months, I took this advice, breathing a long sigh of relief that
teaching him to talk wasn’t my
job. But, what I’ve come to realize in this past year, is that if he’s ever
going to sing a song, invite a friend over to play, or read a book aloud, I
better be there to make sure it’s going to happen.
It
takes discipline, hard work, and love, which eventually turns into a habit that
feels a lot like normal life. I make him say words for anything that he points
to or grunts at throughout the day. I demand that he always gives me his best.
I drill him on Kaufman cards on the days he doesn’t have speech therapy. I’ve
learned to turn off the television, ignore my household chores, and interact
with him by playing games or molding play dough. I research online and talk to
other apraxia moms to find out what’s working for their child. I sit with him
and play abcmouse.com on the computer as many times as he wants. I read books
and point to pictures, hoping one day he’ll be able to mimic the words that I
say every night at bedtime. I have found the right therapy when the wrong
therapy wasn’t working. Most importantly, I’ve learned to turn speech therapy
into an all day, every day challenge and make the most out of every moment I
have with him.
The
bottom line is, being the mother of an apraxic child means always doing your
best to ensure that one day your child will be able to speak. It’s also about
taking a deep breath of patience and then counting to ten to calm your nerves,
when he repeats the same word two hundred times in one day because he can’t say
the other fifty he was saying the day before.
But,
as our public school SLP told me last year, “Children with apraxia have good
days and bad days. The goal is to have as many good days as possible in order
to see progress.” Now that we are getting therapy that is designed to beat this
frustrating disorder, we are hearing voices up ahead in this silent tunnel
we’re trapped in. And I know, if everyone pulls together and works hard, we’ll
make it to the end, holding hands, and most importantly ... talking.
You can read more about Jake at www.jakes-journey-apraxia.com.
