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Monday, May 13, 2013

Celebrating Luke on Apraxia Awareness Day

This year is the first EVER Childhood Apraxia of Speech Awareness Day (May 14th).

All of the other apraxia moms were posting pics of their kids with text announcing their support for their children and I couldn't figure out how to make the "poster picture".

After attempting and failing numerous times, I was about to give in.

But then I thought about how hard Luke works on a daily basis just to make a sound, let alone how difficult it is for him to produce a word or string those words together to form a sentence. 

And then I knew I couldn't give in that easily.

One thing that apraxia has definitely taught me is to ask for help. 

We certainly wouldn't have gotten this far in our journey without the help of others. 

I pleaded (not really, I just asked...but pleaded reads so much better) with one of the apraxia mamas I met on this journey to make one for me. Without any hesitation, she agreed and produced this most precious poster for us.



Please join us in celebrating Luke's success in fighting Apraxia. 

Check out the new website www.unlockinglukesvoice.org  We will still fundraise through Luke's church fund, but have now set up an easier paypal option. 

You see, we are not done with this journey, but we can definitely see remarkable progress. So we keep keeping on, putting one foot in front of the other.

But today, we will stop and celebrate all of the accomplishments Luke has made and how far we have come in this journey. 

Luke is our superhero.


Signs of Apraxia (from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association):

A Very Young Child:
· Does not coo or babble as an infant
· First words are late, and they may be missing sounds
· Only a few different consonant and vowel sounds
· Problems combining sounds; may show long pauses between sounds
· Simplifies words by replacing difficult sounds with easier ones or by deleting difficult sounds (although all children do this, the child with apraxia of speech does so more often)
· May have problems eating

An Older Child
· Makes inconsistent sound errors that are not the result of immaturity
· Can understand language much better than he or she can talk
· Has difficulty imitating speech, but imitated speech is more clear than spontaneous speech
· May appear to be groping when attempting to produce sounds or to coordinate the lips, tongue, and jaw for purposeful movement
· Has more difficulty saying longer words or phrases clearly than shorter ones
· Appears to have more difficulty when he or she is anxious
· Is hard to understand, especially for an unfamiliar listener
· Sounds choppy, monotonous, or stresses the wrong syllable or word

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