About Me
I have an undergraduate degree in Psychology, a masters degree in Elementary and Early Childhood Education and a second masters degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders. I am a certified Speech-Language Pathologist in the state of Missouri. I have worked in a self-contained classroom with children diagnosed with speech and language disorders. I have worked doing itinerant speech and language therapy in elementary and middle schools. I have worked on a school district's diagnostic team and I have supervised in a university speech and language clinic.I am also a wife and a mother to a boy and a girl born a little over a year apart. They are delightful individuals and best friends. I am privileged to be their parent. They also happen to have a history of abnormal speech development.
Our Story
Neither of my children babbled or had a typical phonemic repertoire by 18 months of age. My son caught up between the ages of 18 and 24 months only needing help with some straightforward articulation errors when he was a little older. My daughter did not.Shortly before Ava was about to turn two years of age I accepted the fact that she wasn't going to spontaneously catch up like her brother. She had only three or four (incorrectly produced) words rather than the close to 50-minimum she should have had. She was only able to produce a few sounds. She couldn't imitate. She had many of the red flags for Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) and I was worried it would be severe. (Spoiler: It wasn't.) To be honest, I was devastated.
After a period of time adjusting, I started lining up services for her. She received early intervention services through the state, and when she was older speech therapy provided by our local school district. She received private therapy with one of the best speech-language pathologists in our area who specializes in motor speech disorders. And I began to work with her at home.
I took a crash course in CAS buying, borrowing, and begging any professional resources I could find on the topic. I began to get very frustrated with most of the commercial products I was buying. I had a child who couldn't even imitate "mama" and when I looked at resources that targeted the /m/ sound, they always included very complex words (multiple syllables, consonant blends, vocalic /r/ sounds). I needed a simpler set of resources to work with Ava and I wasn't finding any. I began to make my own. Then I wanted to share them so that other SLPs and parents could benefit from the resources as well.
I hope you find information and resources here that help.
Please leave comments on posts you enjoy or email me at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com to give me some feedback or ask questions.
Easy Ways To Keep Up:
- Bookmark this link and come back whenever you like: http://testyyettrying.blogspot.com/
- If you would like new blog posts and informational articles to magically appear in your email inbox each day just fill in your email address below:
