Kindergarten and Apraxia
Whew, here we are two weeks into kindergarten with Thatcher, and the world is not over. Shockingly enough we are all still alive, and dare I say, even happy. (I really hope I am not jinxing myself here.)
Thatcher is loving school and “knock on wood” things are going really well. Granted, he hasn’t started into the nitty gritty of kindergarten yet, but he is so happy to be a kindergartner and to ride the bus. He is trying so hard to communicate with his teacher and even though she doesn’t understand everything she is doing her best to make it work.
There is a possibility that we will need to send in his iPad with an app that helps him construct sentences. We are giving it a few weeks before we decide to send it or not. He is very motivated by school and we want to use that to our advantage right now to get him to work harder to volunteer his words without prompts.
If you would have told me two years ago, heck even one year ago….who am I kidding, if you would have told me three weeks ago that I would have such a great report of Thatcher’s first two weeks of kindergarten, I would have laughed in your face and called you a liar.
Two years ago I couldn’t imagine Thatcher ever being able to put two words together, and I definitely couldn’t imagine sending him somewhere with people he didn’t know and couldn’t communicate with. Kindergarten was a terrifying thought.
Two years ago we had just found out how Severe Thatcher’s Apraxia was.
It was a scary, overwhelming and desperate time for us. We were scared of what this meant for our little boys future, overwhelmed by the gravity of the diagnosis and desperate for any information on therapy approaches that were helping other children.
Many tears, sleepless nights and internet searches only had us feeling more uncertain and overwhelmed. There are so many varying degrees of Apraxia. All we knew was that on a scale of 1-16 Thatcher was a 16 in severity. That’s BAD!
Children with severe apraxia need 7-13 speech therapy sessions a week to see results.
Our state was offering us 5 a month. Five a month!
I had to fight to get that number up to 7.
It was then that I realized it was up to me. I was the only one who cared enough about my son to make sure he really got what he needed.
It has been a very long road to get to where we are now, but I can honestly say I am much less afraid of Apraxia today then I was two years ago. I am watching my amazing son, kick it’s butt everyday!
I wish I could be a bird on every parents shoulder as they get that initial diagnosis. I would tell them that as hard as the road is, it will be okay, just keep going. Walking, crawling, whatever it takes to keep moving forward. As slow as the progress seems at times, it is still progress.
For us, so far, that road has consisted of:
- Speech therapy (with his therapist twice a week and with mom 5 times a week)
- A special preschool in our home with friends he was familiar with at age three
- Finding a preschool that was a good fit for him as a 4 year old (that was a pain in the hinny)
- Coordination activities like gymnastics, sports and bike riding (coordination and speech are in the same area of the brain)
- A supplement cocktail everyday consisting of Phoscol, vitamin e and Omega 3 fatty acids (dha and epa)
- Music Therapy, Thatcher loves music and is very motivated by it.
- IEP plans
- Counseling with therapists and teachers
- Fighting a few fights with the system, no one else will fight for your child except you
- Casana Seminars
- Neurologists
- Developmental Pediatricians
-We started seeing amazing results when we added the supplements along with the music therapy and gymnastics lessons last winter.
There have been many times when we felt like we couldn’t crawl any further and that all of our efforts were making NO difference.
BUT THEY WERE! We can see that now! Keep moving! Don’t Give Up! Pray for help! We do, we know we can’t do this alone!
God knows you and he knows your child and he will help you. I know that because I have experienced it first hand. I could go on for hours about experiences that have solidified my belief that God knows and loves each of his Children. He has strengthened us and lifted our hearts in our most difficult moments as we have worked to give our son every chance at a normal life.
Two years ago Thatcher was three. He had just started saying Ma. Up to that point he had called me Da because forming the m sound was too difficult. Now just two years later, my heart skips a beat when I hear him tell me, “Night mom, love you mom,” every night, in a beautiful clear voice……. And then he wakes up and goes to kindergarten.
It’s going to be okay…………
I know there are many more hills to climb in our future, but right now, just for a minute, I am going to sit right here and enjoy the view of how far we have come!
Thanks for listening to this mama’s heart.
Keep it Real!
Your strength & positive attitude are an inspiration to all of who are blessed to know you. Keep on keepin’ on my sweet beautiful friend! PS: bonfire season is just around the corner. 🙂
Kim, you sure know just what to say to a girl. Thanks for being such a great and always supportive friend! ….and we love us a good bonfire. 🙂
I’m so glad to hear that he is making such wonderful progress! You work so hard with him, you always have and he is just as lucky to have you as you are to have him!!
Thanks Toni. It’s hard to believe are little cuties are in Kindergarten! I hope Brandon is loving it too!
Oh, what a blessing! That Thatcher is adorable and I hope Kindergarten continues to be a raging success. You are an amazing mom, Maria!
Thanks Mel, we are feeling very hopeful around here and trying to make sure we help Thatcher stay so confident and happy about school. 🙂 Thanks for your sweet comment!
This post gives me hope. More hope than I’ve had in a while. My 3yo son was officially diagnosed almost a year ago, and it is still a shock. Thank you. I hope my son will make the leaps and bounds that yours has.
Erika,
There is hope. So much! I couldn’t imagine he would be at this point two years ago. Even when it looks like there is no progress, just keep going. I know you son will do well, because I can tell you ate the kind of mom that will give him all the help you can! Stay Strong! You can do it!
Great job on helping your son! We found that supplements made all of the difference in the world with our apraxic son as did PROMPT therapy.
What made you try Phoscal over a pill supplement of PC like the Country Life version? The price discrepancy is huge.
Thanks!
Hi Shannon,
I love hearing that supplements are helping other children with apraxia too. Do you have a link to the supplement pill you use? We chose phoscol because of the strong recommendation from Kelly Dorfman, I would love to look more into it. If it is more cost effective and has the same benefits I will switch. 🙂 Thanks for taking time to leave a comment. I wish you and your special son all the best!
Maria
Hi Maria,
So happy to hear Thatcher is doing well in Kindergarten. My son is almost 3, with moderate apraxia. Just the speech part is his challenge. I was wondering what was your favorite play based therapy that you did with Thatcher at home? We will only get 2 days of therapy a week as well. However, I plan to work with him 5 days a week at home. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
Thatcher was really motivated by anything “Car”related. We would play a game called boom, bam if he did his flash cards well. He loved the game and would do almost anything I asked him to if we could play it. All it is is each having one or two cars and crashing them into each other and yelling boom or bam, when they crashed. It was good for him to say boom and bam over and over too. 🙂 He also loved when we would both lay on our backs with our feet touching and pretend we were pedaling a bike around the block. I would tell him a story about what we would see, incorporating his speech words, and have him say them while we were pedaling. He liked the matching game we used. I would also play a game where I would put small objects in my hands that were either colors or objects that were actually words he was working on, and he would pick a hand and tell me what was in it. This was fun to do with an old Kleenex box too. Put small objects or even his flash cards or cards from a matching game in it and let him pick one out and say what it is three or four times. We always sang a song before we started. we would do the same one for 3-4 weeks because the repetition helps so much, and I would always end our session with a story and do the same thing where I would read the same story for 3-4 weeks for the repetition. We also had a calender we would count along with. Of course many of these things felt like they were doing nothing for a long time, but the songs, stories and numbers we counted to are still the ones he does the best with now. With kids with apraxia repetition makes all the difference even if it seems like it isn’t at the time. The pathways are being strengthened in their brain and later those things they repeated a lot will be the easiest things for them to recall. Does this make sense? I will eventually try to write up a post that is more organized with some of my favorite ideas, but I hope this helps for now. Good Luck! I wish you and your sweet boy all the best!!!!!!!!!!
I’m glad to see more parents speaking out about this non talked about subject . My son is 6 , with aprexia and we live in a sheltered community . No one ever heard of it . I have done nothing but fight for my son , advocate for aprexia and more help . I found this post on a sleepless night before we start kindergarten this morning . Thanks for writing
Hi there. Thank you for sharing your and Thatcher’s journey with apraxia.
I was wondering where you got this stat from:
Children with severe apraxia need 7-13 speech therapy sessions a week to see results.
Thank you!
Hi Neka,
I honestly don’t remember. It has been 8 years since we got the initial diagnosis and I am not sure where I read that stat. In those early days I was searching for and reading anything I could find on Apraxia. That statistic was in one of the articles I read.
Thatcher two formal speech therapy sessions a week and then I did my best to copy what the speech therapist had done on the other days of the week at home. Thatcher is in 6th grade now and doing really well. He is still in speech one day a week and is just working on articulation of a few of the more difficult sounds.