This is your brain on speech apraxia

When you have a child with any degree of learning disability, life becomes a challenge. There are roadblocks you have to navigate that the "average" child doesn't have to deal with. 

Sarah has apraxia of speech. As best as we can determine it is due to birth trauma.  She was born with very low APGAR numbers and she took a few minutes of intervention to perk up. Hers is not as bad as it could be. I am grateful for that. The condition brings things I have to figure out though.

If you research speech apraxia, you will find that it typically affects other areas of development. She's a little bit of an uncoordinated klutz and she is very picky about textures of food.

Through 4 years of speech therapy with some really great teachers, we got her past the worst of the speech issues. I don't believe you would ever know she dealt with this if you were engaged in casual conversation.  Unless you recognized that her hesitation in speaking to people she isn't completely familiar was more than shyness, you would think she was normal.  She doesn't speak to people much because her words don't often come out as articulately as she wants them to. When she's overly emotional, her speech issues show up again.

Last summer, she taught herself to swim--and she lost ground on her sounds. Her r's grew lazy again. She can't do all the things at once. She is very aware.

Now, we are facing a new issue. She has great ideas floating around in her brain, but her speech cannot keep up with those ideas and she is easily frustrated by her perceived lack. She feels stupid in this area and gives up easily. 

What's going on? She has to learn to write coherent passages. Getting the words in her head down on to the  paper involves mental acrobatics that just wear her down.  

I'm back to researching how to help her navigate this so that she can prove to the world that she is as smart as we know she is.  

We are all monsters

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, is a classic. It's a tale of horror. It's a tale of terror.  It's a tale of whining and moaning and groaning and complaining.

Victor Frankenstein is ambitious and arrogant. He cannot be taught by anyone that disagrees with him. (He sounds like so many college kids I currently know.) Those who disagree are pointless and worthy of nothing but disdain.  

He wants to create life because he wants to know, in his arrogance, how God feels. He works feverishly to accomplish this. It is only when he faces his creation full in the face that he realizes what a mess he's just created.  Instead of immediately fixing the mess, he flees.  Victor is a coward.

And he is weak for he falls into agony and illness as his horror looks him full in the face.

He spends and entire book whining about what a poor wretched creature he is; he brought it on himself by his refusal to take correction. (Proverbs 29:1) 

Now his brother is murdered and a young innocent girl is executed; Victor knows she did not do the deed but he opens not his mouth in order to save himself from being termed "mad." (Proverbs 17:5)

His monster then turns and demands what he wants in order to stop him from further murder. (The creature making demands of the creator?) When Victor finally decides not to give in to the demands, the monster murders more. 

Victor continues to bemoan his unhappy state--which he brought on himself.  

Then we hear the monster's side of the story. Let's be aware that the monster is as whiny as his creator. The monster began gently enough but humanity drove him from his kindness! Alas, the monster was forced to become wicked. Only wait a moment, the monster himself tells the reader that he chose his way out of anger. Yet, he feels he is not to blame because HE is the victim. No one can possibly feel as bad about life as he does. 

This book was horrible reading, and yet it sounds so much like America today. Everyone is a victim and no one is constrained to take personal responsibility. 

And one more thought, the monster is Judas Iscariot, though Victor is no Jesus.