Speech update

Colt's speech therapist came today and she spent a good amount of time educating me on speech apraxia and how I can help colt. Nancy Kaufman is the apraxia guru and is known world wide for her methods. Part of her "program" starts with teaching word approximations. So for kids with speech apraxia, breaking down the words to the simplest form is where to start. Colts therapist gave me some nancy Kaufman cards that we will practice with him several times a day. The cards are pictures of everyday things/people. For example: one card has a cow and I say "moo moo" to colt and try to get him to say the same thing. The goal is to eventually have him see the cards and automatically know what to say without being cued. We have to start small and work our way up to the proper pronunciation of the word. But for now we will work on word approximations with colt. I tried the flash cards this afternoon with colt and he got easily frustrated, which is to be expected. He gets a reward if he says the word approximation for the card and I think once he figures out he gets rewarded, he will be more willing to cooperate. I was reading on another speech apraxia moms blog and she explained it very well- we teach our kids sign language and we don't expect a 2 year old to sign the sign perfectly. We learn what the sign means for them and its good enough. So, how can we expect a 2 year old with speech apraxia to say a word correctly right away? We can't, we have to start small ( word approximations). I know colt has an extremely challenging road ahead, but we will not give up and will do whatever it takes to get colt to be able to communicate. It is very hard to watch your child struggle with something that is supposed to come so natural. I question why colt, considering he has struggled enough in his life with having had 3 bone marrow transplants, but questioning why gets us no where. God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers, right!!! Colt has shown me that happiness does not come from how smart you are or if you can talk or not. Anyone that has ever come in contact with colt will tell you he is the happiest kid they have ever been around. So instead of complaining about yet another struggle colt is facing, I will be thankful he is alive and healthy! I'm thankful he can give the best bear hugs ever !!! I will try and upload a video of colt practicing his flash cards to help document his progress. Thank you for all your prayers for my sweet angel :) Natalie

December 2012

Hello All! Just wanted to give a quick update on Colt. Colt started Mother's Day out in September and is adjusting pretty well. He only goes 2 days a week, but those 2 days have really helped his socialization skills. He still cries a little when I drop him off, but his teachers send me pictures of him right after I leave and he is perfectly happy. I couldn't ask for better teachers for Colt- they are so patient and kind and understand his medical background, which puts me at ease. I'm not sure if I mentioned in a previous blog that Colt is recieving speech therapy through ECI. His therapist use to work at the school I taught at so it worked out perfectly that she can now be his speech therapist! Colt has definitely made improvements in his speech since starting therapy, but mothers intuition told me that there was still something not right. Colt understands/comprehends speech perfectly fine. He cannot get the words out to tell us what he wants. We have been doing sign language with him, but recently he has started not wanting to sign at all. His therapist mentioned yesterday that she thinks he could possibly have something called speech apraxia. Basically, Colt understands speech and knows what he wants to say in his head, but his brain is missing the step that tells his mouth to move and get the words out. We honestly don't know if this was caused by all the chemo he was exposed to or if he was just born with the issue....we probably will never know, but my thinking is it was from the chemo because he was saying a few words before he went to transplant. The difficult part of this for me, is there is no long term research on kids that have been exposed to chemo at such a young age and all the other nasty drugs he had to take. I believe with intense speech therapy that Colt can overcome this condition. He is a fighter naturally, so this is just another battle for him. It is really hard as a mom to see your child struggle so hard to talk, when it comes so natural to the majority of the population. I will do whatever it takes to give Colt the best chance at the future. Like I mentioned before, his speech therapist is awesome and I know with time my little fighter will be talking. He is very verbal, you just dont know what he is telling you a lot of the times! He can clearly say- momma, daddy, no, yes/yah, ball, more, mine, ack for snack, mine, and sometimes says I did it. So we know he can talk, its just going to take a lot of repetition for him to learn new words and hold onto those words. Please continue to keep Colt in your prayers :)