Good day

Shea and I had the nicest day together on our big city Friday-go-to-see Bubble. We weren't tempted to pummel each other once! And, lately that is a big improvement.

He was sweet tempered all day. Saying please and thank you and being particularly compliant and easy to be around. And, I dragged him all over heck to boot. Well, the paint store and Costco. But believe me that is enough with all the road work happening in SODO. Sheesh.

Got to Madrona in plenty of time to walk in the trail park; a little neighborhood pocket park with some sweet trails planted with NW natives and sporting breathtaking views of Lake Washington.

Bubble is blown away at Shea's reading. Aren't we all.

It was hot but all the ferries behaved. Beautiful, blue skied summer day in the NW.

Lucky, lucky life.

Hard work

When Shea was younger than 3 or so he had no words. He grunted, pointed, squeaked and was mono-syllabic. He made a sound that I always visualized as "ACK" or sometimes "OCK". Remember Bill the cat? Didn't he say "ACK!"?

I remember Shea would make these 'hard work' sounds; like grunting from exertion.

Even when something wasn't really heavy or hard to do, he would make the sound for added emphasis? Or maybe because it was just a comfortable, easy sound for him to make.

Later, at 3 1/2 he would say his first word "up" while lying on his back and pushing Bubbles hands up with his feet. "UP!" Hard work, guttural, deep from inside his torso.

From that day on, little by little, it has come. Sounds, words and phrases; they are there, accumulate quickly and are still coming. Even though, at times they sure are hard to pin down.

The other day Bubble said she only imagines he will need Speech for another 2 years or so. I had been thinking 5 more years. She said that he will probably need help with some school work or extra tutoring down the road but, honestly, who doesn't? That we can sure do.

Now, he still makes the hard work noise not just for emphasis, but to ham it up or to make a joke or to act like a super hero.

Which he is.

Train wreck: the good, bad and the ugly

The good? Actually the good is real good.

Our new Speech and behavior therapist gal came on Monday. She came to my house. Shea needed about 47 seconds to be shy then invited her to play magnets.

They had a wonderful time. She pushes a little harder then some, insisting he says a word not just once, but 3 or 4 times. It went really well and I look forward to having her input all summer.

The bad? Shea is doing Mini-hawks sports summer camp. All week, from 8:30 to 11:30, they (39 little kids 4 - 6) play and learn about baseball, soccer and basketball. After 3 solid hours of play, I know they are tired but they get out right next to the big playground at the elementary school. It is nearly impossible to not let him play a while after wards.

Shea wants to be the fastest, climbing the highest, running, jumping, doing circus tricks. On the playground he is a leader but just doesn't have the language and socials skills to deal with that role. Basically he is getting more and more cranked up. And, not in a good way.

One little boy points at Shea and said, "That boy made Logan cry today." I tried to find out what happened, tracked the boy down, heard what happened. I guess Shea took his hat and wouldn't give it back and then started hitting.

I apologized to him and tried to explain that Shea doesn't have many words and talking is hard for him. That he didn't do it to be mean.

Well. It was going down hill fast. I feel I need to jump right on it if Shea hits. I am not going to just hang back and let my kid hit some other kid and not deal with it. I corrected him once and hoped he could keep it together if he just calmed down. I probably should have just taken him home then. Implement a 1 strike you are out rule.

I am sure this is part of his Sensory Integration issues. He gets so cranked up when he is playing with lots of other kids that he is literally whirling top speed, no time to STOP and communicate, no time to listen to his mom, no time to focus on his behavior. He starts hitting. You know, train wreck we are on our way.

The ugly?

Shea went to play on a big dome climber and, of course, all the other little boys followed him over. The behavior continues and he hits the same kid again. I jump right on it again but he is inside the dome. And, get this...he is running away from me, eluding and ignoring me. Will not come to me. Laughingly he continues to elude me while my blood is beginning to boil, I am saying the old, "you come here right now! I am going to count to 3. Shea! I mean it. I want to talk to you."

Pointless. He thinks it just hilarious that he doesn't have to listen to me and that I can't get him.

Until, I moved my fat butt right on down and climb inside that stupid dome and grabbed him, peeled his fingers off the bars and jettisoned him out from under that dome. I literally had to physically remove him from the area with dozens of mothers, fathers and other kids watching. He was still trying to run from me and refusing to walk. We had a long, excruciating, not very gentle walk all the way across the playground with Shea in full melt down rotten kid mode and me barely able to keep from completely exploding.

Absolute horror show.

Tomorrow? I don't think so. Time to shake up the dynamic. We are going to the pool.

I don't entertain

Not very often. Something about my messy, cluttered, dust bunny house?

But today I had some good friends over and at one point I thought, "this is pretty much perfect"; 2 excellent gal pals, some toothsome tidbits and cool beverages. Later some other neighbors stumbled over. We laughed, we kvetched and repeatedly marveled at Shea.

He talks all of the time. You can't always understand what he is saying but he sure is talking a lot these days. My GGF said, "You should get some audio of Shea. His speech has exploded. It will be hard to remember." She is right. I should.

I just don't see the huge strides over weeks and months, I am way too close. But, it seems everyone this summer is commenting on Shea and his willingness to pipe right up.

We are starting something new. There is a speech therapist who lives on Vashon but she works off island at the Port Orchard School District. She has the summer free and can come to my home on Mondays.

Also, she happens to be getting her Behavioral Therapy certification and would like to help Shea with the potting training this summer - for free. She is planning a long day where we sort of just hover over him the whole day and keep reinforcing the message. She says we may need the next day also.

Now, this I gotta see!

I will faithfully report back!

Swine flu: 6 cases here in Washington

Speaking of Swine Flu!

The elementary school 2 blocks away from Bubble (Shea's speech therapist) has been closed down due to a confirmed case of Swine Flu.

Friday is our usual day to go in.

I am really tempted to keep a nice big moat between us and this illness.

Question:

Am I a chicken shit?

Happy "F"day!

No, I am not being profane! I might mean happy Friday as well, all of us I am sure, have had a hell of a long week.

But, what I really mean is "F" day. You know, like the letter.

It looks like Shea may have finally mastered the "F" sound today with Bubble. "F" is one of the classic tough letter sounds that take a lot of lip and mouth control. Shea would just skip the whole sound and put something easier in it's place.

Like:

Sunny for Funny
Serry boat for Ferry boat
Sog for Frog

You get the idea.

Interestingly, he didn't seem to have a problem with putting the "F" sound on the end of a word.

Off, Cough, Yaff (laugh), you already know about that pesky "L".

But, today Shea was full of F's: funny, found, ferry boat. They seemed to come easily, without him stuggling. In fact, he didn't even seem to think twice about it.

Our work this week is to keep them coming. Don't let him slip back to old easier pre-F days.

When it was time to go, Shea said, "I no want to go." When pressed he said, "Stay with Bubble. I miss Bubble."

Bubble said, "Shea, you will always, always be my very special friend." He then went over and gave her a big long hug that melted good old Bubble to blurry tears.

She said, "Shea you have made my day."

Thanks Bubble, you have made our day too. A very Fine Friday to us all.

We have come a long way, baby!

Two years ago when Shea was just about to turn 3 we were trying to get him to blow a cotton ball across the table. Just getting his mouth to work and blowing with enough force was an exercise that we worked on for quite a while. It seems like an age ago.

Referred from a friend, we were also just beginning private speech therapy with Bubble lady. He wasn't speaking at all. He was coming along well with signing, the whole family was and most of my excitement and enthusiasm at that time was over those strides.

Bubble took the signing as a good indication but never really pursued it with her therapy. She was going to teach Shea to talk and at first it was painful to watch. Sometimes it still is.

I remember a day where Shea was pushing cars on her window sill. Bubble gently took them away. Shea maybe grunted his annoyance but just stood there watching and waiting for what came next.

"1...2...3...Go!" She said and she pushed the car to him. "1...2...3...Go!" She said and he pushed it back.

Again, "1...2...3............................?" Waiting for Shea to say go was one the longest, most anguishing waits of my entire life. I literally screamed "GO!!!" in my head, again and again. Internally, I pleaded for him to just do it. I physically squirmed, it was so uncomfortable to watch. Bubble kept her cool. He knew what she wanted him to do. All he had to do was try.

I am not sure how long she coaxed and prompted him with the "1...2...3...?", multiple minutes perhaps which seemed like days, but he eventually said something that was a close enough approximation to "Go" that they could move on. They did those over and over again.

Bubble cheered and congratulated Shea on this big hurdle but I was a wreck. It was a very hard thing to watch. Like watching paint dry while having your heart rolled in ground glass.

There are a lot of little stories like that but my point for this post is how far he has come. Time is an amazing thing especially for the little guys. So much can happen in a year or two.

As we near Shea's 5th birthday, I am hopeful. He has come so far. I still don't know what it all means but we are still moving forward.

As I type, Shea has just come down from his bedroom ready for snuggies and interested in what I am doing on the computer.

So, I point out to him a simple, familiar childhood mini-sentence and he reads out loud to me, "1...2...3...Go!"

Yes, baby, you have come a long way.

Where are the "L's"?

One of the hardest, last to really try letters for Shea is L. He will place the letter "Y" or some other letter in its place in a word.

"Yeyo" for yellow
"Mowee" for Molly
"I yuv you" for I love you

You get the idea.

Bubble says that L is a difficult articulation for kids, all kids in fact. But especially for Shea.

Say it to yourself. L, L, L, L. Feel your tongue tip rest gently on your upper teeth? That is the sort of sophisticated and nuanced tongue movements that Shea really stumbles on.

The good news is that he approximates the "L" sound with another letter sound now. He used to not even try. That was the apex of fright and frustration for me. When your kid won't even try.

It may be a while before we will ever get it.

This morning, I called up the stairs, "Shea?"

"Yeah?" he yelled back.

"Honey, come on down for some cocoa."

"Ok, I coming."

I stopped, surprised and pleased and said to Jake and Molly. "That sounds like a kid who can talk."

He will get there...eventually.

Comparisons...never a good idea

Don't compare. That should be a hard and fast rule. You would think I would know that by now.

When I was in high school, I had a poster of Albert Einstein on my wall with this quote, "Do not compare yourself with others, for you will always find someone better and worse than yourself." Or something close to that.

At the time, it made a big impact on me and helped me through some tough years. I never forgot it.

But, then the kids came along and it is really hard not to compare to other kids their age. With Shea, that was really painful so, understandably I stopped comparing typically developing kids.

But when I read a really good blog post about another kid with Apraxia the other day, I slipped right into comparing my speech delay kid with hers.

I know, I should know better by now.

One side of me celebrated with the mother for the great strides that her son was making. He was only 3 and he was doing great; sentences, content, vocabulary. No doubt Speech Therapy 3 days a week was key. But, how could they afford that?

See? Don't compare. It will always make you either feel like shit or smug. And, neither is a very good way to feel.

So, I guess, honestly, it made me feel like a loser and afraid for Shea all over again. That I am not advocating hard enough. That I am not doing everything that I can possibly do. That I should be somehow making the state pay for more than they already are. It makes me feel like I am lazy and don't sit down and focus on drills and modeling as much as I should.

That I just treat him like a "normal" kid too much. Is that possible? Is that terrible? Sometimes I don't even know anymore.

Speech Therapy update

It was one of those early Spring days that gets your blood and all the little buds on the trees all worked up. Getting up to bright blue skys, brilliant sun, not too cold and warming up by the minute is a rarity in the Northwest at this time of year. And, a day like this is treasured like loot.

By the time, Shea and I were on our normal Friday Speech Therapy run to Seattle to see Bubble lady, we had shed our coats and were just soaking up the rays on the ferry boat.

A nice day for a nice report. Bubble says that she is impressed at the extent of Shea's language and sentence structure. Huh?

For example, he said to her while holding up a beloved Lego contraption, "I brought this for home." She didn't seem concerned that he mixed up "for" and "from" but focused on "brought"; a complicated word that is an embedded idea. This is actually a pretty good example of the sort of things that Shea is saying these days. A big whoop for many a kid but a pretty grand leap for Shea.

Bubble said that she is less worried about his articulation which is something I always seem to fret about because it is hard for other people to understand him. But, she said she was impressed with his word choices and the cognitive sequencing needed to "build" a sentence. Huh?

I nod happily because she seems so please but I rarely fully understand what she is saying. Even after all this time. But I absorb what I can and try to parrot it back to Dad and Gramma and friends and the blog. I hope I didn't botch it up totally with all that repeating and reemphasizing.

She asked about plans for Kindergarten and seemed to think Shea was ready. I expect academically he may be but social he isn't there. For example the potty training. I just don't feel good about sending him into a mainstream Kindergarten class when he is no where near being potty trained. It just seems like playing with fire.

I did mention my concern about his "low tone" is his mouth and lower face. Maybe his bladder has "low tone"? She suggested we talk with the normal doctor and if they can check that off first, she has referrals for psychological help for Potty Training. Ok. We can do that.

So, a beautiful sunny day with some positive news and an action item. I'll take it.

Scissor, Missor, Wizzor

Gently nudged by Bubble lady, Shea and I play this game. She says that rhyming words can help with vocabulary development, articulation because he says the same ending sound over and over. But also cognitive planning because he has to think of another starting sound and add it to the ending sound. Apparently, this is a game that packs a punch.

White, kite, bite; usually our words are one syllable words.

Cow, wow, pow; mostly easy, familiar words.

Poop, loop, coop; occasionally funny, goofy words.

We trade off, back and forth until we have gone through almost every letter in the alphabet then he will pick a new word to rhyme. It doesn't need to be a real word, in fact the made up words are even more fun.

"Rhyme with scissor, mom." Shea starts the game as we are snuggied in bed this morning. Good one! Two syllable word but nothing really rhymes with scissor. Doesn't matter, we are off!

This is a game perfect for the car, airplane, waiting on the ferry; all the little boring lulls of life.

When Bubble has suggested something like this in the past, I have to admit I only half listened. If I didn't immediately see the power or importance, I would just file it in my already very full and barely organized mental file and then eventually forget about it. But, as we move toward our 2nd year anniversary with Bubble, I have gotten better at just going with her suggestions. Realizing it doesn't necessarily have to make that much sense to me. It's worth a try for Shea's sake.

Or, simply, making a little investment in a leap of faith. Sometimes it pans, sometimes not but maybe the leap in itself is the point.

Rhyming words and dirty kleenex

It was Bubble lady Friday with Shea and it went pretty well. He just loves her and it really is just a good solid hour of intellectual play time for him. I usually spend the time listening to progressive talk radio or reading The Sun; a brief respite in a busy, on the road kind of day.

She has instructed us to work on rhyming words with Shea; make it a game and make it fun. She says that is isn't only just for his language development and articulation but clues and triggers for early reading. Sounds good and he is certainly interested in words and letters.

Recently, he has begun to demand what each road sign says as we drive. Lots and lots of signs. Repetition doesn't matter. Yes, he is interested in words.

I remember saying, "Shea may read before he talks." And, he is on his way.

We let him play on Starfall.com a wonderful educational website that begins with the Alphabet which includes ASL too. Now, he has moved onto the more complex early reading components, perhaps over his head a bit but the desire is there and he likes it.

Bubble also made a point to mention to me that his verbal sequencing is beginning to be more fluid. For example, he would say, "Bubble...lady" or two distinct words with a pronounced delay between each word. She pointed out to me, and I see that she is right, Shea's language is beginning to flow more smoothly with less choppy stops and starts.

Hey, that's true! I had only really noticed that the sentences were coming but she is right, the words flow with a more natural, less stilted cadence.

Shea also arrived at Bubble lady's with minor sniffles, so another thing they focused on today was nose blowing. I never have been able to get him to do it and Bubble told me that it is a sequencing thing and difficult for some kids. Now, that I think about his low tone with his mouth, I can see that it would be harder for him. She kept encouraging him to close his mouth and that was the trick. They worked on it today and he is nearly down with a good nose blow now.

Pretty good. Progress...it seems.

Hit the wall

I think Shea has just hit the wall. Yesterday with Bubble lady, he just dug in his heals and kept saying, "too hard". He wouldn't even try the words or letter sounds that she wanted him to work on. Bubble ended up getting out the book, The Little engine that could, and talking about how he needs to just try and keep trying. She told him that she knows that he can do it and she is not going to give up on him.

The other night, Shea was playing with a calculator and he asked what it was. So, we broke down the word Calculator into four parts while he repeated them. He said, "Hard word." I thought that was a pretty interesting exchange but I didn't really think much about it until I told Bubble.

She was pretty blown away. Something about how to use language to talk about language is a pretty advanced thought process. Hm...interesting indeed.

Shea has a stubborn streak yards wide. The last thing I want is for language and talking to become a battle ground.

I think this holiday break is coming just in time. We will all get some time off; less rushed with time to just chill. Maybe Shea can bring some new energy and enthusiasm back to the challenge after a little break.

Let's hope.

Speech update: blending sounds

What does "splash", "climb" and "spin" have in common? They are all blended sound words that are hard to conquer for some.

Bubble lady told me that blended sounds would be the next big push that we would be working on with Shea. She said that will go along way to help with articulation and to help other people understand what he is saying. Sounds good.

It's weird how our family can all understand what he is saying. Even though it is quite rough. We just know. I often need to translate for him even with his specialists. If I am having a hard time understanding what he is saying he will get frustrated, sometimes really frustrated. But, he will usually try again, sometimes clearer or with another clue to help me figure it out.

I am glad he now makes the extra effort and I always make a big deal with praise and pats on the back of these attempts. But I am reminded how much I am missing of what he thinks and feels because he can't speak easily. I just hope one day down the road he will be able to tell me how he is feeling in full throated description and detail. I can't imagine it but I still hope.

Speech update: working on sentences

"Bad guy in car." Shea said the other day pointing to one of his match box cars. Apparently, the bad guy was in the red car and the good guy was in the blue. I doubt if this was a political statement but I thought it quaint considering the timing.

For people without speech difficulties it is really hard to relate to how very hard it is. For example, me; I have always been a talker. Molly as well, she piped up with full sentences at 2. But, for Shea every word is work and a sentence, no matter how cryptic, is a very big deal.

Bubble lady, our beloved speech therapist, works on specifics every week like: plurals (cars) or possessives (Shea's car) and gives us direction and things to work on at home. Right now we are coaxing the "w" sound. Shea will say "yun" for one or "yait" for wait. I mouth the "w" sound and sign the letter by my mouth and usually he will try it again and get it. It's laborious but each time it gets a little easier for him. BTW - Learning to sign the alphabet does come in handy.

We are also working on the "f" sound, apparently a very hard one. Funny is "sunny" and fish is not even close. We've gotten pretty good at translating. As a family, we can pretty much figure out what he is trying to say.

On his own, he has started to say the "z" sound as in cozy or Maisy. And, the other day he tried out "la, la, la" as in singing. Now, that's new.

But, despite the challenges Shea's sentences are coming. 2, 3 and 4 word sentences are happening more and more these days. The biggest difference seems to be that he isn't as reluctant to try now. And, I swear, a lot of that reluctance diminished when we changed to the wheat/gluten/egg free diet. He was so much more focused and willing to try new words.

I read a touching blog the other day. A mom was saying that she was hoping/praying that her child would just open up and spontaneously speak one day. For her sake, I hope it happens. But, I remember feeling the same way. For the longest time I had dreams that Shea would look at me and the words would just spill out. Easily, like the way it was with my daughter. I would be elated and then I would wake up and realize that it was all wishful thinking.

I asked Bubble lady early on if it was like a switch flipping on and that he would just "get it". Unfortunately no but she gave me a good analogy. "Remember learning to drive a clutch. At first it was extremely awkward, it felt very weird, very hard work getting the sequence right but after practicing it got easier and easier, the more you did it the better you got." That is what Shea's speech delay is like. Each time he tries, it paves the way for future successes.

I like to think of it as walking trails in a deep forest. At first they are hardly visible and you need to hack your way through the brush. It's hard work and sometimes painful. But, each time they are traveled they become more pronounced, easier to see and negotiate. With time and traffic the trails become roads.

Only Shea will be able to tell us where his road will finally lead him. That is what I dream about these days.

Good signs and happy hope

Bubble lady whipped out some more tests recently. The last time she ran cognitive tests for Shea he just didn't have the verbal skills to be able to take the test appropriately. Wisely, she set them aside and said she would run them again once he had progressed to a point where it would make sense.

On Fridays, when we go to the city for speech, I usually pop in to say hi, let her know of anything that has happened over the week and let them work together without me there. For the first year or so, I stayed in the room and observed. And, I did learn a lot but I felt I was distracting them both. I find that he is a bit more oppositional when I am there. And, frankly, it just makes me a nervous wreck to sit there and watch the battle of wills. I feel it is better for everyone if I go and hang outside for the hour, run errands, listen to the radio, etc.

So, I did not know that she had deemed the time appropriate to run those tests again. But, when I came to pick him up after the session, she was visibly excited. She had ran the cognitive portion of the test and he had landed at 53% or pretty much smack dab in the middle. Or as I like to think of it, age appropriate.

What a relief. We had always intuitively known that he had his wits about him. But, somehow the quantified number gave me waves of relief and hope.

Bubble lady also ran another test to find out where his language was compared to typically developing kids. The results came back with his expressive language at 3 years and 3 months. Or about a year a half behind. This didn't sound too bad to me and it seemed like proof that serious progress has been made.

So, here is a perfect example of the dichotomies of life; on one hand I don't trust those standardized tests one bit. On the other hand, these test just gave me concrete results that I could cling to as we ride this wave.

I guess that is why open minds glean more benefits?

Bubble Lady

Sally gave me a name and a number for a Speech Pathologist/Therapist that she had worked with in the past. I think I had it for months; long enough to loose it once and had to ask for it again. It wasn't until Shea's 3rd birthday neared that I called Marian. I was nervous. I was opening a door on something that I didn't really want to acknowledge.

I remember we talked for quite a while on the phone that first day. I was surprised that she gave me so much of her time. She was very nice and informative; had a stellar resume and seemed a good fit. After I explained Shea's issues as best I could, she said, "Well, he does sound like a child that I would see." We arranged a time and the ball was in motion.

Here is just a quick aside; there are no Speech Therapists on my little island. We have 11,000 people, a rocking grocery store, good restaurants, a couple of bookstores and a movie theater but not one speech therapist. Going "off island" or "over town" was going to be a given. Ok, you do it for your kid.

When we started, Shea did not have any words. He grunted, squeaked, pointed, babbled and hollered. To begin, she did an evaluation or gave Shea more standardized tests. But, she said right at the beginning, "These tests don't really mean a thing. They are snapshots at a certain point in time. In fact, mostly they are garbage."

By the way, we actually do call her Bubble Lady because helping Shea to learn to blow bubbles was one of the first things they worked on. For Shea, just learning to blow a kazoo or a whistle was a big deal. It was months before he expressed his first real word, "up". It was born from a "working hard noise", like lifting something heavy, coming from deep down inside. UGHP! Is how I would spell it. This was indeed a break through for him.

I should probably share a little bit about what to expect if you go find a speech pathologist. First, they are in high demand. Many are not even taking new patients. Marian says that there are fewer and fewer people getting into the field because the insurance companies do not generally cover neurological therapies or only a small portion. I won't get going on the insurance issue, that is a whole post by itself. But, the long and the short of it is; we were lucky to find her.

Also, I need to be honest; it's pricey. Let's just say, I could get myself a facial, pedicure and a manicure plus a tip every week for about the same price. But, I don't question the worth, not at all. She has been integral in helping us navigate this stressful, scary time. She gives us real and legitimate advise on how to deal with school and the insurance company. She offers hope and encouraging anecdotes. She gently tugs us away from negativity and helps us look at the big picture. Frankly, we could not have gone this far without her.

Now when I look at Shea, I really see how far we have come. He now calls her Bubble Lady all by himself. It warms my heart each time I hear it. I know it warms hers too.

Thank you, Bubble Lady.

Apraxia

The first speech therapist that we saw brought up Apraxia as a possible diagnosis. Huh? What is that? I turned to the internet to find out.

"Apraxia of speech, also known as verbal apraxia or dyspraxia, is a speech disorder in which a person has trouble saying what he or she wants to say correctly and consistently. It is not due to weakness or paralysis of the speech muscles (the muscles of the face, tongue, and lips). The severity of apraxia of speech can range from mild to severe."

More good information at:

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/apraxia.htm

I ran across another very good website focusing specifically about Apraxia with kids:

http://www.apraxia-kids.org/

I did a lot of reading and worrying, then more reading and more worrying. The diagnosis seemed to fit. When we modeled for him sounds or asked him to mimic, he would delay or just sort of stare at us. I kept thinking, "Can't he do it or won't he even try?" He seemed to be able to make sounds on his own terms but when asked to perform he pulled up short. Was it performance anxiety?

Later our wonderful private speech therapist that has been so supportive and helpful to Shea and our family, told me that Apraxia in children is a relatively new focus perhaps 10 or 15 years old or so. She talked about how Apraxia or Dispraxia was originally studied in stroke victims who had lost speech. The words are there in the brain but won't come out as speech.

Wow, I thought, how frustrating. If this is really the problem, how the heck am I going to help my kid?

Communication is crucial for human contact. How is my kid going to have a productive life without being able to talk? Those were dark days. But, we got to work and started signing.