Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Ava Speech Update - Winter 2013

Birthdays, holidays, trips, surgeries, and reduced childcare have been conspiring to decimate my previously immaculate record of regular posting. Bear with me please, I'm working on it.

We just had Ava's second IEP meeting. She's come such a long way.

(Brief review for those who aren't caught up.

We began almost exactly two years ago with her early intervention evaluation. At that time she was barely talking at all even though she was almost two years old. Even more concerning was that she only had a few speech sounds she could make and she couldn't imitate. She was also giving up - beginning to turn to rudimentary gestures instead of even trying to talk.

Over the next several months we started using communication boards and sign language which gave her some tools to communicate and made her much happier. She began receiving services and working with me intensively at home. We all worked hard, and we saw a great deal of progress. She learned new sounds and started using words along with her signs. She made the jump to two-word utterances. Steadily we saw progress.

Six months after her initial IFSP meeting the second one was held and the team identified an additional area of need. Ava had sensory issues that were affecting basic life skills like dressing, bathing, feeding, and socializing. She began to receive occupational therapy in addition to her speech therapy. She continued to make progress in both areas.

Another six months crept by as she approached the age of three where children transition from early intervention to services provided by the schools. We needed to have her reevaluated to see if she would continue to qualify for services. Fortunately, she did and so her first IEP meeting was held. On her third birthday she joined a speech group using the cycles approach. It has served her well and over the next year we have seen so much progress.)


At this point Ava is speaking in full sentences using age-appropriate vocabulary and morphology. She is not at all hesitant to communicate and is usually intelligible. She continues to exhibit many speech errors but the only ones that are age-inappropriate at this point are /k/ and /g/. If you've been following me for a while, you'll know that we've been working on /k/ and /g/ for something like 18 months. I am happy to report that they are finally starting to come in. She can produce velar sounds now. She can do it almost all the time when imitating words in medial and final position and at least 85-90% of the time when imitating initial position. I even hear it pop in occasionally in spontaneous speech. (Okay, very occasionally, but that is huge!) So, finally we are on our way with the velars. Now it is just a matter of time.

At her IEP meeting we decided that the speech group using the cycles approach was no longer the most appropriate setting for her given that she's only working on velars. We are reducing her minutes to 30 minutes a week and she will receive those services via a traditional pull-out method. Her therapist will pull her out of her preschool room for 15 minutes twice a week to work with her on her velars.

I know there is more to work on than the velars, but I am so much more relaxed about it. The other sounds come in later anyway (/th/, /r/, etc.). She's mostly intelligible. I'm going to start homeschooling in the summer, and I think I'll sneak speech work into pre-reading phonics lessons rather than addressing it completely separately during "speech time". She's really have a phonemic awareness explosion enjoying playing with syllables, beginning and ending sounds, rhyming, and alliteration and so working on the speech covertly through a related area of strength makes more sense to me.

In summary, things are good. Progress over the past two years has been phenomenal and I anticipate that she will continue to improve. As I look back and remember how devastated and worried I was two years ago I wish I could travel back in time and provide a glimpse of the future. We are fine. Ava is fine. It has been a lot of work, and a huge commitment. However, even the work has often been fun. Ava enjoys her speech therapy and the friends she makes there. She’s been doing it so long, it is just a part of her life – no different than preschool or gymnastics. It is just an activity for her. I’d say the turning point is when the speech improves just enough that you can understand her most of the time. When everyone is frustrated and in tears because you just can’t understand what they are trying to say on a daily or hourly basis, things are awful. After that, it is so much easier.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for the update. This sounds sooo good. Time to relax and enjoy some normality. Yay! Karin with Little Ed

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was able to overcome senile dementia via a complete naturopathic process.

    About two years ago, when I was 56, I started feeling foggy and had occasional memory lapses. My wife, Mary, started to notice it, too, but I also have hearing issues so she thought that was the problem. My memory problems worsened very gradually over the years, and we lived with it, compensating as needed. I became less social. After some months thereafter, it got to the point where we couldn’t keep making excuses or ignoring it. I had gone from doing our grocery shopping without a list to going with a list, to having the list but not buying what was on it.

    Mary went online to do some research, and it was during this process we had been fortunate enough to come across Dr. Utu Herbal Cure: an African herbalist and witch doctor whose professional works had majored on the eradication of certain viral conditions, especially dementia, ( improving the memory capacity positively), via a traditional, naturopathic process and distinguished diet plan. It was by the administration of this herbal specialist that I had been able to improve my condition for better. So to say, the encounter with the above-mentioned herbal practitioner was the first time we ever heard there was something that possibly can be done to improve my memory functionality.

    By the existence of such an encounter, I was able to learn of the new approach by which this herbalist successfully treated dementia conditions, which included a distinguished herbal therapy and lifestyle changes of which I had undergone to a tremendous, positive effect.
    It was after the completion of the herbal therapy I had started to experience a great deal of cognitive improvement when it came to rational decision making.

    In brief, I was able to go through the dreadful hollows of senile dementia without any further hazardous damage to my health condition, and within a short period. Had it not been for the support of my wife, of whom had encouraged me to undergo the above-mentioned therapy and that of the herbal practitioner of whom now happens to be benefactor - I would have been long exposed to the further perils of this condition and of which had been apt to result to a calamitous end.

    I would also wish for the same positiveness upon patients who may happen to be suffering from this debilitating disease, and would warmly plead with them to find a confidant like this herbal specialist with whose professional services I was able to obtain a divine recovery.

    For more information concerning this African traditional cure for Alzheimer's disease; feel free to contact Dr. Utu directly via email: drutuherbalcure@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, there. I am Tom Neil and I wish to describe how life had been for my younger brother living with schizophrenia and how he had been permanently able to overcome this debilitating disease via a naturopathic, herbal method.

    Maicon - my kid brother was twenty years old when he was brought to the emergency room by the campus police of the college from which he had been suspended several months ago. A professor had called and reported that he had walked into his classroom, accused him of carrying his tuition money and refused to leave.

    Although he had much academic success as a teenager, his behavior had become increasingly odd during the past year. He quit seeing his friends and no longer seemed to care about his character or social pursuits. He began wearing the same clothes each day and seldom bathed. He lived with several family members but rarely spoke to any of them. When he did talk to them, he said he had found clues that his college was just a front for an organized crime operation. He had been suspended from college because of missing many classes. My sister said that she had often seen him mumbling quietly to himself and at times he seemed to be talking to people who were not there. He would emerge from my room and ask my family to be quiet even when they were not making any noise.

    My father and sister told the staff that Maicon's great-grandmother had had a serious illness and had lived for 30 years in a state hospital, which they believed was a mental hospital. Our mother left the family when Maicon was very young. She has been out of touch with us, and they thought she might have been treated for mental health problems.

    Maicon agreed to sign himself into the psychiatric unit for treatment. The whole family except I had agreed to have Maicon transferred to a mental asylum. I knew inwardly there was still some plausible means by which my kid brother could overcome this condition. I knew botanical means of treatment will be more favorable than any other type of treatment, and as such, I had taken a keen interest in the research of naturopathic alternative measures suitable for the treatment of schizophrenia. I had pleaded for some little patience from the family in the delay of the transfer, I was looking forward to proving a point to the entire family, of a positive botanical remedy for this condition.

    It was during my ceaseless search on the internet I had been fortunate enough to come across Dr. Utu Herbal Cure: an African herbalist and witch doctor whose professional works had majored on the eradication of certain viral conditions, especially schizophrenia, ( improving the memory capacity positively), via a traditional, naturopathic process and distinguished diet plan. It was by the administration of this herbal specialist that my brother had been able to improve his condition for better.

    Before the naturopathic remedy - Maicon's story had reflected a common case, in which a high-functioning young adult goes through a major decline in day-to-day skills. Although family and friends may feel this is a loss of the person they knew, the illness can be treated and a good outcome is possible.

    My brother Maicon is just like many other patients out there suffering from this disease. Although he was able to overcome this condition via a naturopathic herbal remedy administered by this African herbal physician and saved completely thus, rekindling the lost joy which had been experienced by the family members.

    I wish to use this opportunity to reach across to anyone who may happen to be diagnosed with this disastrous condition to spread the hope of an everlasting herbal remedy that is capable of imposing a permanent end to this disease.

    For more information concerning this naturopathic herbal remedy, feel free to contact this African herbal practitioner via email:
    drutuherbalcure@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete

Web Analytics