Chelsea's Apraxia Treatments
Donation protected
Chelsea has severe global developmental apraxia, a rare neurological disorder that prevents normal development of speech as well as gross and fine motor skills. Basically, her brain tries to send signals telling her muscles to walk, pick up a pencil, or say, "My name is Chelsea", but those signals are garbled or lost along the way. This video shows her trying to talk. Right now, we are very focused on trying to get her to speak. Even as her mom, I understand less than 2% of what she says, which is very discouraging when Chelsea tries to communicate!
Chelsea is 3 years old but has fewer than 10 words (she can say Mama, Dada, Bye-Bye, and a few others). The best treatment for Apraxia of Speech is roughly 10 hours of 1:1 therapy a week to manually teach Chelsea's brain how to recognize and make the correct muscle movements and speech patterns. This isn't covered by insurance, and the school district doesn't provide nearly enough services for optimal progress.
Typically, speech therapy is between $70/ hour and $150/ hour, so you can imagine how quickly bills rack up! The $3,000 would be used for 1:1 speech therapy and aids for home therapy practice sessions for this summer (June-August 2014), as well as sending me (Chelsea's mom) to an apraxia conference in July so I can learn what treatments are best for Chelsea's severity of apraxia and implement those strategies in her therapy program.
She is an amazing girl who tries so hard every day, and wants to talk to people! Thank you so much for supporting her!
Chelsea is 3 years old but has fewer than 10 words (she can say Mama, Dada, Bye-Bye, and a few others). The best treatment for Apraxia of Speech is roughly 10 hours of 1:1 therapy a week to manually teach Chelsea's brain how to recognize and make the correct muscle movements and speech patterns. This isn't covered by insurance, and the school district doesn't provide nearly enough services for optimal progress.
Typically, speech therapy is between $70/ hour and $150/ hour, so you can imagine how quickly bills rack up! The $3,000 would be used for 1:1 speech therapy and aids for home therapy practice sessions for this summer (June-August 2014), as well as sending me (Chelsea's mom) to an apraxia conference in July so I can learn what treatments are best for Chelsea's severity of apraxia and implement those strategies in her therapy program.
She is an amazing girl who tries so hard every day, and wants to talk to people! Thank you so much for supporting her!
Organizer
Mary Mecham
Organizer
Alpine, UT