We’ve had two sessions with our Early Intervention therapist, Ms. A. now. I'm not sure how it works elsewhere, but here in Missouri, the early intervention therapist comes to your house. Other than the fact that I'm forced to clean, it is super convenient. She's coming once a week for an hour as we decided in our IFSP meeting.
Ms. A is great and I like her a lot. She’s already building a rapport with Ava and Ava is working well with her. She’s given me some new tips that work well with Ava. Ava is right at the border between one syllable utterances and two syllable utterances. We’re all trying to work with her to try to get her to make that jump up. Ms. A introduced tapping. It’s simple, but it really helps Ava hear that she needs to be producing more syllables. Nana (for banana) is two taps. Mo mi (more milk) is two taps. Right now, she can say more. She can say milk. She cannot say more milk. But if you tap, she’ll try. It usually comes out mo, mo. But at least she’s trying to imitate both words.
Another idea she had was to use an exercise ball during therapy. Children with apraxia often have more success with speech productions when they are paired with movement. So she put Ava on the ball and did Row, Row, Row Your Boat with her. The song was super slow and she rocked Ava back and forth with each word. By the end of the song Ava was trying to sing along. It was adorable.
Right now, the therapy sessions are more indirect and play based than I’d like. Therapy based on motor planning principles is all about getting lots and lots of productions, and you just can’t get as many productions in play based therapy. I’d love to see Ms. A begin to incorporate a more structured part of the therapy session at some point, but so far they’re really just getting to know each other. It will come. And if I want that to happen I’ll have to figure out a way to keep Michael occupied elsewhere. But overall, I’m pleased. It’s an excellent beginning.
A Speech Pathologist Mother and Her Daughter Diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Sweet Rituals
Daily life with small children is made up of small rituals. How do you wake them up (or how do they wake you up)? What do you do when you put them to sleep? What special games or songs are special to you? How do they greet Daddy when he comes home from work? Some rituals are pretty boring and they are just the routines that get you though the day. Some are sweet.
Ava and I have a new ritual. It's developed since she moved to her toddler bed. One afternoon when she woke up from her nap she was cranky and I just pulled her into my lap on the floor and sang to her and rocked her until she felt better. The next day when I got upstairs after hearing her wake up she was waiting for me sitting on the floor in front of the door to her room. I could tell she was waiting for me to sit down and scoop her into my lap for a repeat of songs and rocking time.
Over the next several days more steps were added. Now it is pretty consistent. She waits for me in front of the door. We sing and rock on the floor. Then she slips out of my arms and brings over a book which we lie in front of on our tummies with arms propped on elbows to read together. Then we tickle and giggle and roll around and play until I finally suggest going downstairs.
It's a sweet way to spend some time together before our afternoon therapy session and I treasure it. It's a ritual shared just between mother and daughter that we don't have to share with anyone.
Ava and I have a new ritual. It's developed since she moved to her toddler bed. One afternoon when she woke up from her nap she was cranky and I just pulled her into my lap on the floor and sang to her and rocked her until she felt better. The next day when I got upstairs after hearing her wake up she was waiting for me sitting on the floor in front of the door to her room. I could tell she was waiting for me to sit down and scoop her into my lap for a repeat of songs and rocking time.
Over the next several days more steps were added. Now it is pretty consistent. She waits for me in front of the door. We sing and rock on the floor. Then she slips out of my arms and brings over a book which we lie in front of on our tummies with arms propped on elbows to read together. Then we tickle and giggle and roll around and play until I finally suggest going downstairs.
It's a sweet way to spend some time together before our afternoon therapy session and I treasure it. It's a ritual shared just between mother and daughter that we don't have to share with anyone.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Nighttime Wakenings
Nighttime Wakening One:
We were shocked awake by Ava's cries of "Mama! Mama!" We never have to go in to her in the middle of the night, but I could hear the panic in her voice. She had a foot stuck in between the rails. As soon as I got it out she instantly rolled over and fell back asleep. The scary part is that she stayed asleep when the smoke alarm went off seconds later because I had left her humidifier on full blast and coming into her room stirred the humidity up towards the smoke alarm. Logically, our high-tech smoke alarm interprets that as a fire. After turning her fan on full blast and waving a towel at the smoke alarm for what felt like five minutes it finally shut off and we were able to go back to sleep.
Nighttime Wakening Two:
Michael fell asleep quickly the other night because he had skipped his nap. I could hear a lot more restlessness and coughing than usual through the monitor and was a little worried, but not too much. I'm lucky. The vast majority of the time The children sleep beautifully every night from bedtime through to morning. But a few minutes later I knew exactly what I was hearing - the sound of a child throwing up and panicking about it. The mess was epic and involved changing bedding, wiping down the crib, carpet cleaning, washing several stuffed animals, a 10:30 pm bath, and a new set of pajamas. Michael and I were snuggled in a blanket waiting for his Daddy to finish cleaning when round two hit. An 11:00 pm bath ensued, followed by another round of laundry.
I decided we needed at least one puke free hour before trying to put him to bed so we relocated downstairs to pass the hour in front of the tv. Round three hit 40 minutes later, but this time the mess was contained to a single blanket. 40 minutes after that we managed a bucket. At that point I sent my husband back to bed and was hoping to get Michael back into his bed at 1:40 in the morning. So of course round five hit at 1:30 am. My next goal was 2:30. We only made it until 2:00am pushing my goal back to 3am. He finally fell asleep on the floor of the living room around 3am. I left him there not wanting to risk disturbing the fragile peace and slept on the sofa myself.
We were shocked awake by Ava's cries of "Mama! Mama!" We never have to go in to her in the middle of the night, but I could hear the panic in her voice. She had a foot stuck in between the rails. As soon as I got it out she instantly rolled over and fell back asleep. The scary part is that she stayed asleep when the smoke alarm went off seconds later because I had left her humidifier on full blast and coming into her room stirred the humidity up towards the smoke alarm. Logically, our high-tech smoke alarm interprets that as a fire. After turning her fan on full blast and waving a towel at the smoke alarm for what felt like five minutes it finally shut off and we were able to go back to sleep.
Nighttime Wakening Two:
Michael fell asleep quickly the other night because he had skipped his nap. I could hear a lot more restlessness and coughing than usual through the monitor and was a little worried, but not too much. I'm lucky. The vast majority of the time The children sleep beautifully every night from bedtime through to morning. But a few minutes later I knew exactly what I was hearing - the sound of a child throwing up and panicking about it. The mess was epic and involved changing bedding, wiping down the crib, carpet cleaning, washing several stuffed animals, a 10:30 pm bath, and a new set of pajamas. Michael and I were snuggled in a blanket waiting for his Daddy to finish cleaning when round two hit. An 11:00 pm bath ensued, followed by another round of laundry.
I decided we needed at least one puke free hour before trying to put him to bed so we relocated downstairs to pass the hour in front of the tv. Round three hit 40 minutes later, but this time the mess was contained to a single blanket. 40 minutes after that we managed a bucket. At that point I sent my husband back to bed and was hoping to get Michael back into his bed at 1:40 in the morning. So of course round five hit at 1:30 am. My next goal was 2:30. We only made it until 2:00am pushing my goal back to 3am. He finally fell asleep on the floor of the living room around 3am. I left him there not wanting to risk disturbing the fragile peace and slept on the sofa myself.
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