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.
No comments:
Post a Comment