This is a review of The Late Talker: What to Do If Your Child Isn’t Talking Yet by Marilyn Agin, Lisa Geng, and Malcolm Nicholl. Marilyn Agin is a developmental pediatrician that specializes in apraxia and Lisa Geng is a mother of two late talkers. This book’s target audience is parents, not professionals. They want to educate parents of toddlers who are late talkers. Their first chapter is a brief overview of normal speech development and the second talks about the consequences of speech delays. The third chapter briefly introduces you to speech disorders in general and Childhood Apraxia of Speech in particular. These first three chapters are a well written overview of the background information you need to know in order to understand what exactly the problem is with your child’s speech and why it matters.
Next the book begins to go into what you can do about it. Chapter four is about the various professionals you will meet when you begin to try to get help: developmental pediatricians, speech-language pathologists, pediatric neurologists, etc. Chapter 5 is about getting the right kinds of therapy. Chapter 6 is about insurance. Chapter 7 is about things you can do at home (several good ideas here). Chapter 8 is about fish oil supplementation. Chapter 9 is about your child’s frustration and how you can cope with it. Chapter 10 is about your frustration and fears as a parent and how to cope. Chapter 11 is a summary.
Pretty much every chapter covers a topic that is interesting as a parent who is dealing with a child who is a late talker. I highly recommend the book. I think it is a great place to start if you’re just beginning to research. I think it can be a useful review that might hit some areas you’re unfamiliar with even if you’ve been looking into CAS for a while.
If you have a Kindle, or a smartphone that runs Kindle, you can download a sample of this book for free. If I remember correctly, the sample includes the introduction and maybe even the first chapter. I was able to get the book through my local library. Even if I had purchased it, I would have felt it was money well spent. I also saw the book at my local Barnes and Noble. So it is pretty easy to get your hands on a copy of this book if you are interested.
If you've read it, or go out and read it, let me know what you think.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Opportunity Lost?
So, nine days ago I was offered an appointment with a local expert on apraxia. This person only sees clients twice a month on the weekend and the appointment was for this coming Sunday. I was so excited to have the opportunity to work with her and to have her meet Ava. I emailed her back immediately and said, "Yes, please!"
And then I waited and waited to hear back from her confirming the appointment. Tonight I went back to re-read that email I sent to her so that I could write her another email gently reminding her that I still needed to confirm that appointment.
And I realized that I accidentally sent my response to her email to my husband instead. I never wrote her back! I immediately re-sent the email to her and added an apology and explanation for the delay and I'm now waiting to hear back from her.
But I'm sure the appointment is long gone by now. I'm so disappointed. An opportunity lost. Hopefully she'll have an appointment available two and a half weeks from now. Hopefully.
And then I waited and waited to hear back from her confirming the appointment. Tonight I went back to re-read that email I sent to her so that I could write her another email gently reminding her that I still needed to confirm that appointment.
And I realized that I accidentally sent my response to her email to my husband instead. I never wrote her back! I immediately re-sent the email to her and added an apology and explanation for the delay and I'm now waiting to hear back from her.
But I'm sure the appointment is long gone by now. I'm so disappointed. An opportunity lost. Hopefully she'll have an appointment available two and a half weeks from now. Hopefully.
Therapy Resources – The /b/ list
Description:
My goal here was to collect a list of simple words and images that start with /b/. I needed them to be familiar to a young child. I wanted to have at least one word/image for each vowel sound. Some of vowels have several /b/ words because I was able to think of more of them. If your child can produce the whole word, great! Go for it. However it is perfectly fine if all they can produce is the /b/ followed by the vowel. For example if all they say for bottle is /ba/, that’s great. If they can say /ba ba/ that’s one step more complex. If they can say /ba ba/ three times in a row that’s even more practice. You will probably find that your child can make some of the /b/-vowel combinations more easily than others. That’s typical too. Don’t push too hard. It’s your SLP’s job to work on new things. You can just use these to practice things that your child already can do. The nice thing about this word set is that you know it combines /b/ at least once with each vowel.
Activities:
This, of course, depends on the age and attention span of your child. At the simplest level you can simply hold up each card and ask your child to imitate the word (or simplified version of the word). I’ll admit, bribery here can be useful (stickers, stamps, cheerios). You could also print out two sets and play a matching game with a few pairs at a time.
For an older child you could make a game board with the images and use simple game pieces and a die or spinner. If you had two sets you could play a card game similar to old maid or uno where each player is dealt some cards and tries to get matches by asking the other player for cards. If you have any other ideas, please contribute them in the comments or send me an email and I’ll include them here as well.
Tip: Print them and then “laminate” them by putting them between two sheets of clear contact paper. They’ll last much longer that way.
I’ll admit it. I’m new to this blogging thing and I can’t figure out how to give you guys a link so that you can just download a nice quality version of these. The best I could do is the pictures. If you’d like me to send you a pdf, just send me an email and ask for the /b/ pictures. I’ll send them right along.
I found all the images via google image and tried to avoid the ones with watermarks. If any of you have suggestions for additional words to add to this list please let me know and I’ll put them in. I hope some of you find these to be helpful.
Words:
My goal here was to collect a list of simple words and images that start with /b/. I needed them to be familiar to a young child. I wanted to have at least one word/image for each vowel sound. Some of vowels have several /b/ words because I was able to think of more of them. If your child can produce the whole word, great! Go for it. However it is perfectly fine if all they can produce is the /b/ followed by the vowel. For example if all they say for bottle is /ba/, that’s great. If they can say /ba ba/ that’s one step more complex. If they can say /ba ba/ three times in a row that’s even more practice. You will probably find that your child can make some of the /b/-vowel combinations more easily than others. That’s typical too. Don’t push too hard. It’s your SLP’s job to work on new things. You can just use these to practice things that your child already can do. The nice thing about this word set is that you know it combines /b/ at least once with each vowel.
Activities:
This, of course, depends on the age and attention span of your child. At the simplest level you can simply hold up each card and ask your child to imitate the word (or simplified version of the word). I’ll admit, bribery here can be useful (stickers, stamps, cheerios). You could also print out two sets and play a matching game with a few pairs at a time.
For an older child you could make a game board with the images and use simple game pieces and a die or spinner. If you had two sets you could play a card game similar to old maid or uno where each player is dealt some cards and tries to get matches by asking the other player for cards. If you have any other ideas, please contribute them in the comments or send me an email and I’ll include them here as well.
Tip: Print them and then “laminate” them by putting them between two sheets of clear contact paper. They’ll last much longer that way.
I’ll admit it. I’m new to this blogging thing and I can’t figure out how to give you guys a link so that you can just download a nice quality version of these. The best I could do is the pictures. If you’d like me to send you a pdf, just send me an email and ask for the /b/ pictures. I’ll send them right along.
I found all the images via google image and tried to avoid the ones with watermarks. If any of you have suggestions for additional words to add to this list please let me know and I’ll put them in. I hope some of you find these to be helpful.
Words:
- bug
- bus
- bun
- ball
- bottle
- box
- baby
- bed
- bell
- bin
- bit
- bib
- baa
- bag
- bath
- bat
- bam
- bead
- bee
- beam
- bean
- beep
- boo boo
- boot
- badge
- book
- bull
- bush
- boy
- brown (say /bow/ like bow before a queen)
- bow (say /bow/ like a bow in your hair)
- bowl
- bone
- boat
- bye, bye
- bike
- bite
- bake
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