Ashlynn summer speech therapy 3.9 years

Ashlynn received two grants to help with her speech and occupational therapy over the summer!  The United Health Care Foundation and the Lindsay Foundation made it possible!  I am so grateful.  Ashlynn will be back to getting intensive 1:1 speech and OT services.  

As far as speech goes, Ashlynn communicates her wants and needs.  She has basic conversational skills and really does try to tell us what happened in her day.  Sometimes when she's talking, I see my husband look at her with pride in his eye and I know what he's thinking.   Even though we don't always understand what she is saying, it is amazing to listen to her talk and try to tell us things.  She was silent for so long.  

I love her speech therapist.  She was actually my mentor and is now one of my good friends.  She's fun, but I also know she'll push her.  However, I also know she'll find the deficits and the continued deficits are hard to be faced with and make me sad.  I want to write it down though, because if I know anything about Ashlynn, I know she'll overcome it.

- She has significant word finding issues.  Sometimes, she needs so much wait time that eventually she even forgets what she wanted to say and moves onto something else.  

- Her attention continues to negatively impact her progress

- When something is hard, she changes the subject and tries to talk about something else

- Auditory processing skills such as auditory discrimination between minimal pairs (sleep, seep) appear to be impacted.  

- Grammar, including marking varying tenses and using s/v agreement along with pronoun usage are faulty

- Syntax is jumbled, particularly for question forms

- Still has a tendency to assimilate sounds she knows how to say (goggy/doggy), and continues to be inconsistent with her production of consonants in her repertoire (koys/toys). 

- Needs continued work with /l/ and /r/

- Continues to breakdown with novel multi-syllabic words

- Receptive language skills continue to need monitoring

That's a long list, but I have to remind myself it used to be longer.  She'll get there.  I know it.  There was a time I worried if she would ever make friends because she couldn't talk to them.  Here she is at the splash park talking to perfect strangers and making friends.  One step at a time.

For once I went to school, and I heard only positives

Let's face it.  Being a parent is rough.  Whether you have a child with special needs or not, we all want for their happiness, that they will feel successful, that they will be confident, and that they will never hurt.  Of course we know that without trials they cannot fully appreciate the successes, without sadness they could never fully experience complete happiness, without hurt they simply wouldn't be human. 

School has been an absolute blessing for Ashlynn, my social butterfly.  She never let her limited speech hinder any of her relationships.  In fact, her first word was 'hi' and it was all she needed.  She could and still can engage anyone with that simple word and her beautiful smile, and they are hooked. 

But

That's why it was so hard to go to IEP meetings, parent teacher conferences, and get reports from her teachers and therapists.  No matter how many positives were relayed, we always sit there waiting for the

But.

She is so happy and works so hard,

But

She is friendly, sociable, and loving

But

She is an absolute joy

But

I'm not gonna lie.  The "buts" hurt.  It really doesn't matter if they are framed around 100 glowing adjectives, the "buts" can be overwhelming.  Especially when for one child she needs a

speech therapist
occupational therapist
physical therapist
special education teacher
social worker

They all come with their own set of "buts." 

Today though was different!!  Today, her last day of Pre-K, there were no "buts."  Today, as I picked her up, I heard this:

Teacher: "I have been blessed having Ashlynn is my class."
Social Worker: "Ashlynn is the sweetest, kindest child. She is friends with everyone, and everyone is friends with her."
Another parent: "My son told me this morning he was really going to miss Ashlynn. When I asked him what he would miss, he told me her laugh."

It just brings tears to my eyes. There's no standard score or percentile for that....but if there were she would be way above average. 
  
Ashlynn is my sweet, kind, loving, daughter who blesses those around her with her smile, her laugh, and her friendship.

No buts about it.

Ashlynn Trick or Treat

Ashlynn turned four this Halloween, and it brought another milestone: being able to say "trick or treat" and be understood!  When she was two, she couldn't even attempt to say it.  At three, she could say "ee o ee" but then clammed up and wouldn't say it on command.

At four though, we had success!  She still needed prompting and encouragement, but she was able to say an intelligible "trick or treat" and this was her best Halloween yet.  You can click on the link at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2BsWccC4Nk to hear it.  Definitely one proud momma here :)  Happy Halloween!

http://www.youtube.com/v/l2BsWccC4Nk?version=3&autohide=1&showinfo=1&autoplay=1&autohide=1&attribution_tag=tgo3ZEvB8eCF38nnzTbm0g&feature=share

Superhero Brave

For those of you familiar with my blog, I've spoke of "Ben" before. A little boy on my school caseload from a Spanish speaking family who has CAS and is nonverbal. However, IQ testing shows him in the 75th percentile! He's sooo smart. I met him last year in Kindergarten, and we formed an instant bond.

His Kindergarten teacher was frustrated that he wouldn't talk; and I'm not sure if she felt it was a reflection on her, but she really wasn't that supportive of him. 

This year is different! He has a new teacher and she sees what I see, what I saw. She's sees a smart, friendly, lovable little boy who wants to talk, but just needs people to believe in him and boost his confidence. Every time I see her she starts a sentence with, "you won't believe this" or "I LOVE him." Yesterday she told me she believes this year is going to be HIS year. Starting from the first day when she was going around having kids do introductions, she frowned upon getting to Ben and having the other children speak up and say, "Oh he doesn't talk." She immediately stuck up for him, telling the other children yes he did talk and that people talk in different ways. Some use Spanish, some English, some use their hands, some use gestures, and some use devices. 

Ben's corners of his mouth got just a little bit wider.

Another day, one of the kids noticed that Ben appeared to be talking to the class frog and remarked, "Look! I think Ben is talking!"

Her reply?

"Of course he's talking! Didn't I tell you Ben talks?"

Ben's chest puffed out just a little bit further.

And then there was today. The icing on the cake.  I picked him up and she calls me over to brag about an assignment he finished first and attempted to share with the class. Picking up on her hint, I praised him loudly in front of the other children. As we leave the too, a little classmate returning from the bathroom enthusiastically called, "Bye Ben!" Now Ben knows how to say bye with perfect clarity. In fact, he says it to me everyday. He pressed his lips together, but the anxiety was too much and the boy left before Ben uttered a sound. I decided to scratch the lesson plan for that day, and instead I asked him if he knew what brave meant.

I had him draw a picture of someone he thought was brave and I told him I would do the same. We sat at different tables, and I told him not to peek.

When he was finished, he drew a picture of Hulk and Captain America. I asked him why they were brave and with a smile he pantomined strength and then pantomined a sword motion. I verified he thought they were brave because they were strong and had swords to which he eagerly nodded his affirmation. I then wrote on the back that Hulk and Captain America are brave because they are strong, have swords, and I added they fight bad guys. He tapped my arm and held up three fingers. I said, "three bad guys?" to which he nodded apparently satisfied. 

He then pointed to my picture. I asked him if he wanted to see mine and he again nodded yes. As he looked at a picture of a little boy with a blue school uniform, he looked at me puzzled. I asked him, "Don't you know who this is?" Ironically, I had also just happened to also draw him holding a sword fighting a word bubble in his head! What luck!

"It's you Ben." 

His eyes lit up and he pointed to himself incredulously. 

"Yes" I said. "You are my superhero because even though talking is so scary, you still try, and that's what makes you brave." 

Now that smile was a full blown grin.

I went onto tell him I needed him to be even more brave than he already was though. I needed him to be superhero brave when it's time to talk. We then stapled the pages and walked back to class.

At the end of the day, the Facebook support group had convinced me to tell his parents about the lesson; and since they only spoke Spanish, I decided to go out with the teacher at dismissal and have her translate. When I walked in the classroom, all the kids were sitting on the carpet with their backpacks on their backs in preparation to go home.  In the middle was Ben, with his backpack on, but our book in his lap. It did mean something to him!  As luck would have it, BOTH parents came to pick him up that day.  As the teacher translated, his mother choked up and gave him a big hug as they left to go home.

Now his chest was puffed out just about as far as it go!  That's what superhero brave is all about!