Speech-Language Pathology Topics: Complexity of Motor Planning - An Example

Childhood Apraxia of Speech is a neurological disorder of the motor planning of speech. Here is one small example of how complicated that motor planning can be.

You might think that a /b/ is a /b/ is a /b/. Or you may have thought, correctly, that making a /b/ at the beginning of a word is different than making a /b/ in the middle or at the end of a word. But it gets even more complicated than that.

Say the word "book" five times in a row out loud, but before you say it the last time, freeze your mouth in the position it is in when you are about to make the /b/ sound. Your mouth should be pursed a little, almost like you're about to give someone a kiss.

Now say the word "bee" five times in a row out loud. Again, stop before you say it the last time freezing your mouth in the position it is in when you are about to make the /b/ sound. Your lips should be pressed together, almost like you just put on chapstick or lipstick and are spreading it evenly around.

Even though the words "book" and "bee" both begin with the /b/ sound, the motor planning for producing the /b/ is very different. For the first /b/ in the word "book," the motor planning involves the muscle motions necessary for lip rounding (because the following vowel is a rounded vowel). For the second /b/ in the word "bee," the motor planning involves the muscle motions necessary for lip spreading (because the following vowel is a vowel that involves lip spreading).

The difference between those two initial /b/ sounds is just one small example of how complicated motor planning really is. I just thought the example was interesting and I wanted to share.

What to do with an old baby wrap?

I was trying to think of creative ways to use a few old baby wraps I have lying around and I came up with this. We're redoing the basement's drop ceiling so I have access to the guts of the ceiling. I tied the wrap in a loop to a 2 by 4 in the ceiling. Voila. Instant indoor swing.

Michael likes to lay in it on his tummy and twist himself around until the swing won't turn any more. Then he picks up his feet and twists until he's so dizzy he can't stand. Ava likes to sit in it and be twisted and left to untwist, or to be pushed in traditional swing style. At the moment these activities are closely supervised because Ava sometimes gets tangled in the swing when she tries to get out on her own. I pick it up out of their reach when I'm not in the room.

It's a ton of fun though and certainly a better use of an old baby wrap than leaving it lying folded in a drawer.

Here's a picture of Ava in the new swing. Sorry it is so blurry. The swing was moving pretty fast. At least it gives you the idea. And just for fun, here's a picture of Ava in a different baby wrap when she was only three weeks old.

If anyone has any other great ideas for what to do with an old baby wrap, speak up. I'd love to hear them.

No problem.

Last night at dinner Ava was wandering the kitchen with one of her Daddy's wrenches. She walked up to him and said, "Look Dada! Look." He replied, "Yes baby. Could you put that on the table for me?" Ava walked over to the kitchen table and plopped the wrench right down on the edge of the table. She said, "No problem Dada!"

It completely cracked us up. I'm not sure she knew why we thought it was so funny. Did she get that from me?