Jenn Musing Finale

Well, bloggy friends, it's been real. It's been fun. And it's been real fun. But I think I've known for a while my heart wasn't in this blog anymore. My heart really isn't into writing young adult fiction anymore. I haven't even read a YA book since....well I can't even remember when.

I think I'll get back into writing at some point, but my heart is for my children right now who both have special needs and need a lot of extra time, appointments, and love. And so, that means it's time to stop blogging here at Jenn Musing. I've got a new blog over at www.embracing.life, so please do consider checking it out, where I'll be blogging about faith, special needs parenting, and praying Scripture.

Whether I know you in real life, or only in the blogosphere, I have truly appreciated you following me here. Thank you for the friendships, the conversations, the encouragement.  I'll still be on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.  I'll still be blogging, but about my faith and writing and special needs parenting. Gotta blog what you know, you know? Gotta blog what you love, right bloggy friends?

Hope we still get to stay in touch!
Jenn

Summer in a Nut Shell

Hello bloggy friends!  Sorry I've been a little MIA, just got back from a trip to DC for the kiddo's week long speech camp.  It was a great, but exhausting week, and I'm so proud of E for working so hard to learn new words and learning how to put them into phrases.  Here's the kiddo after his graduation where he received a medal for all his hard work, with his speech therapist and the creator of the camp, Jodi Kumar.

Before that, I was participating in Camp NaNoWriMo.  This is the summertime version of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), where you can set your own writing count goals for the month of July.  I wrote a whole 5,746 words before camp.  Didn't have time to write during camp and haven't hit my writing groove yet, so I don't think I'll make the minimum goal of 10,000 words, but it's all good.  I knew realistically I couldn't make 10,000 words and was shooting for between 5-7,000 words.  I'm 5,746 words closer than I was, and I still have a few days to go... :)


Anyway, for my writerly bloggy friends, I wanted to make sure you are informed about WriteOnCon.  It's an awesome online conference for writers that'll take place August 13-14.  Check it out. :)


Oh, and anyone else excited about seeing Catching Fire?  The trailer is pretty awesome!!

So, how's your summer going?

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!