Apraxia Awareness Day

My son loves trains!

Occasionally I mention in my posts that my oldest son has difficulty speaking and that he speaks mainly through sign language.  It's not something I talk about a lot here simply because the point of this blog was to focus on the things I enjoy: writing, reading, blogging, etc, and to connect with people online with similar interests.  But, as today is the first annual Apraxia Awareness Day, I figured why not share with you what it is my son and my entire family struggle with each day.  

My son has apraxia.  Here are a few facts about it, taken from apraxiadventures.com:

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder.  Children with CAS have problems saying sounds, syllables, and words. This is not because of muscle weakness or paralysis. The brain has problems planning to move the body parts (e.g., lips, jaw, tongue) needed for speech. The child knows what he or she wants to say, but his/her brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say those words. 

CAS is a low incidence disorder.  Best estimates suggest that about 1 in 1000 children (0.1%) of children are affected by CAS.

A child with CAS may also present with other motor planning deficits.  Oral apraxia indicates that a person has difficulty with volitional control of non-speech movement; ie, sticking out the tongue, puckering, smiling, blowing, licking. Limb apraxia refers to motor planning deficits relating to arms, legs, fingers, etc.  (It is suspected that my son has verbal, oral and limb apraxia and therefore goes to speech, physical and occupational therapy). 

Appropriate speech therapy for CAS is three times per week for 30-minute individual sessions.  As children improve and develop speech motor control over volitional utterances, frequency can be reduced accordingly, as long as they maintain and generalize improvements. 

Although appropriate treatment is intensive and takes place over a number of years, children with CAS are capable of making many gains and many are capable of developing intelligible speech.  Some children may have some minor differences in their speech, their intonation may not be perfect, or others may perceive some sort of accent. However, most children will speak in a way that others understand.

Hope you learned something today!  If you are interested in knowing more about my son's journey, our struggles and victories as he learns to speak, please check out my other blog: http://sweetapplesofgold.blogspot.com/

Happy Speech and Hearing Awareness Month!

Apple Cupcakes & Writing From the Heart

Apple Cupcakes: Writing From the Heart

Green, red or yellow?  Sweet or tart?  If you decide you want to make an apple cupcake, you have an array of recipes to choose from: with spice, as a streusel, with caramel, and the list goes on.  

I think as writers it's far too easy to fall into what I call an "I don't know what to write that others will like to read" freak out phase.  But just like all apples have a core, all writers have a heart.  If you write from the heart, that's where the seeds are.  It's vulnerable, yes, but if you want your writing to bear any fruit, you have to be willing to dig deep and share what you are with the world.   Doesn't matter what you think others will want to read.  Just write what matters to you.  And maybe, just maybe, it'll matter to others too.

Mark Twain says to "Write what you know."  I don't know if I agree completely with the man.  I've had to do quite a bit of research on creativity and neuroscience for one of the books I was writing, and I loved every minute of it.  I didn't know much about neuroscience, but I was fascinated with the concept and so I was willing to research it, willing to spend years of my life crafting what I found into a story.  It mattered to me, and that's what made me sit down and write and write, and then then rewrite and rewrite.  It was a story in my heart that needed to come out.  

What story is hidden in your heart?

The Fairest Beauty

By Melanie Dickerson

Genre: YA, Christian, historical, fairy tale retelling

My rating: 4 stars

Summary: "Sophie desperately wants to get away from her stepmother's jealousy, and believes escape is her only chance to be happy. Then a young man named Gabe arrives from Hagenheim Castle, claiming she is betrothed to his older brother, and everything twists upside down. This could be Sophie's one chance at freedom—but can she trust another person to keep her safe? 

Gabe defied his parents Rose and Wilhelm by going to find Sophie, and now he believes they had a right to worry: the girl's inner and outer beauty has enchanted him. Though romance is impossible—she is his brother's future wife, and Gabe himself is betrothed to someone else—he promises himself he will see the mission through, no matter what. 

When the pair flee to the Cottage of the Seven, they find help—but also find their feelings for each other have grown. Now both must not only protect each other from the dangers around them—they must also protect their hearts." (Summary taken from goodreads.com)

I have LOVED Melanie Dickerson's previous books, The Healer's Apprentice (a retelling of Sleeping Beauty) and The Merchant's Daughter (think Beauty and the Beast.)  So I was very excited about her newest book, a retelling of Snow White with a Christian twist.  I enjoyed it, but not as much as the first two.  I loved Sophie's character, the story was cute, the themes amazing, but it just seemed too predictable, no real twists, so that I found it hard to stay glued to the pages like I was with the first two.

What I did enjoy, however, was how Dickerson intertwined the story with Christian themes.  The evil stepmother was so much like Satan, planting lies in the heads and hearts of Sophie and Gabe that these two had to overcome the lies with God's truth and accept healing from God alone.  Beautifully done.

Overall, an enjoyable read. :)