Today is Apraxia Awareness Day! It is an important day as many people do not understand Apraxia, and even more have never heard of it. I had heard the name before JJ was diagnosed and knew it had to do with speech issues, but had no idea what it all entailed.
This weekend we found out about 2 more children within our wide extended circle who have Apraxia and are very young. I really enjoyed talking to the one mother at a graduation for a long time and comparing the symptoms and issues. I look forward to making connection with the other mom soon as well.
This week's therapy session:
His SLP was ecstatic that JJ was able to trace an outline of a fish AND then cut it out properly using a scissors!
He was able to match pictures of faces with different emotions - AND label them!! (retrieval)
He spontaneously sang for her! (intonation and retrieval)
He is learning the new songs and she does some "melodic intonation" work with him, and we are to continue that at home. It teaches him to anticipate the next word, work on naming body parts (he knows them receptively, but this is an expressive/retrieval exercise).
He is able to make the /f/ sound (a blessing!!!!), but is very inconsistent with it. We are to be working on making that more consistent...while not making him feel like we are hounding him and thus shaming him with the constant reminder that he is not speaking "right." Not an easy task.
He seems to be getting more comfortable in therapy over the past 4 months (FINALLY!). He does not hide behind me or under my legs as often and is staying on task longer at a time. Thus, the sessions involved a great percentage of actual "therapy" and not just trying to get him to feel safe with her.
Last night Superman had his first baseball game. JJ felt very safe and comfortable to be playing on the playground equipment right near where we were sitting (he had Grace and Faith with him). He even let a total strange girl HOLD HIS HAND! Now, granted that was not something we were really thrilled with...but to get that comfortable with a stranger so quickly was a first!
He continues to have full out bodily temper tantrums 1 - 2 times a day but we are understanding more of what triggers them. Obviously the word "no" is a big trigger, but when we analyze it, it is more about us having interrupted his routine/expectation. For example, when we got home from therapy yesterday it was the exact time that the school van was in the driveway dropping off Superman and our friends who take/bring Grace to school were right behind me. I had 10 minutes before I had to get to work so I just parked on the street. Grace had run to the van driver to get a hug from her (since she doesn't ride the van anymore and insists on hugging everyone in a 5 mile radius) so the van wasn't getting out of the driveway yet I had to transition to get to work and thought parking there was not a big deal. JJ WOULD NOT get out of the car. He would not even let me unbuckle him. I wouldn't have cared if I was in the driveway, but being on the street I couldn't just leave him to run to the house as he could have then gotten out of the car and got run over. So, I finally had to ask my husband to come and help me muscle JJ out of his car seat and get him into the house. The whole time he was yelling (and flailing) that he wanted to be in the driveway. He has his set routines/expectations for how things are to go and is pretty rigid about them. He is NOT on the Autism Spectrum...but he certainly wants things to be a certain way. Most of the issues we don't even realize until something unexpected like this comes up. It makes us be much more aware of the importance of routine and structure for him. Of course, he also has a tantrum when we tell him "no, you can't have a second can of pop" (at a graduation) or "no we are not buying a bag of chips at the concession stand." Those issues can be addressed by us anticipating and discussing it ahead of time with him...but it is sure exhausting to try to anticipate all of his expectations lol!
He also gets really worked up with Grace is screaming at us. He gets pretty hysterical and overstimulated and will start to also yell at us and get physically aggressive. But...that is for another post on Grace that I have been mulling over. Things have been very bad on that front...
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