Our guest speaker via Zoom on Friday, November 3rd was Allison Jones who wanted to give us information on an Apraxia Awareness campaign that she is involved in because of her daughter Grace's apraxia. Understanding what everyone tells her, knowing what to say and fully aware of people not understanding her, she is constantly two steps ahead of trying to get whomever she is talking to understand what she is saying.
Grace deals with this on a constant daily basis. Yet does not seem to let this block phase her. She is truly an inspiring little girl. Grace just turned 5 on May 4th and was diagnosed a couple of months ago with childhood apraxia of speech and is still a fun happy energetic bubbly little girl.
They have begun the process of getting her an AAC device which is a speech-generating device. It is described by Allison, as a tool in Grace's toolbox that will help her succeed. Grace has a long road ahead of her with intensive speech therapy 2-3 days a week, occupational therapy once a week and two other specialty doctors following her. Despite this, Grace attends PreK class three days a week and is on a T-Ball team.
Allison is involved in an effort for everyone to understand want Apraxia Awareness is all about, working with the organization, communicating with people who need to be aware of this issue and help finding solutions that will benefit each child who has developed apraxia.