By David Ozab
To the anonymous donor who gave $60 to Team Anna for our 2012 Walk for Children with Apraxia of Speech:
I want to say "thank you." I know the chances of you reading this post are very small—perhaps infinitesimal—but on the slight chance you see a link to this post, I want to tell you a bit about the girl you're supporting and the many kids like her.
Anna is an amazing girl. I know I'm biased since I'm her dad, but she really is. She is six-and-a-half and she just started first grade: she loves to read, to swim, and to perform for anyone who'll watch, or when she's alone in front of a mirror. She wants to be an actress and I think she'll be a good one: we're looking into classes for next spring.
But to act she has to be understood and that's a challenge for her. At two-and-a-half years old she was diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech. CAS is a motor-speech disorder where her brain knows what to say but the mouth can't keep up. It's a spectrum disorder: some kids don't talk at all while others talk non-stop but can't be understood. Anna was in the latter category: she still is, but thanks to almost four years of intensive speech therapy, we now understand her most of the time. She's not done yet, but she's come a long way.
Speech therapy has made a huge difference in her life and we are grateful to all the speech language pathologists (SLPs) she has worked with over the last few years. SLPs undergo intensive training in order to work with children with CAS, and CASANA helps fund some of that training. They also fund research, iPad app development, and outreach to over 350,000 people each year through Apraxa-KIDS.com, the Apraxia-KIDS blog, and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. None of this would be possible without donations like yours.
Every year, kids with Apraxia and their families participate in walks across the country to raise money and awareness. Last year, we walked with a small group of families in Salem, Oregon, and despite registering just before the deadline we still raised $360. This year, with more time to plan, we hoped to do better.
We did. My wife's employer gave us $1000 (meeting our original goal) in early-September. Friends and family contributed too. And Anna decided to do her part. She saved change from household chores in a special Apraxia piggybank, set up a lemonade stand during a church garage sale, and contributed half of the money she made selling her pre-school aged toys in the same sale. She raised $50 all by herself, which we matched to bring her total contribution to $100.
After the sale was over, we submitted her contributions to our fundraising page, leaving us only $60 short of out new goal of $1350. I posted the story of her lemonade stand on both Facebook and Twitter and with less than two weeks to go we hit our goal.
Thanks to you, anonymous donor.
It's been said by many people that the greatest testimony to a person's character is what he or she does when no one is looking. This contribution, however big or small it may seem to you, is a great testament to your character. You didn't give it in hope of recognition. You knew that no one would ever know your identity and yet you gave anyway.
We will never know your name, but we will always be grateful.
Sincerely,
David, Julia, and Anna Ozab.
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Biography: David
Ozab is currently editing and revising his first non-fiction book, A Smile for
Anna, which tells the story of his daughter’s cleft diagnosis and surgery, her
difficulties with speech, and her incredible outgoing spirit through it all. He
is a Contributing Editor at About This Particular Macintosh and a Guest
Contributor at MyEugene. His writing has been (or will be) featured such diverse
publications as Chicken Soup for the Soul, Errant Parent, and Catholic Digest.
He is a stay-at-home dad and blogs about parenting and life at Fatherhood Etc
(http://www.fatherhoodetc.com). He
lives in Oregon with his wife Julia, his daughter Anna, and two lop rabbits
named Jellybean and Oreo.
For more information on David Ozab, visit his website at http://www.davidozab.com/
“Will my child be accepted?” It’s a question every parent asks, particularly parents of kids with Apraxia of Speech. I’ve asked that question myself many times. My daughter Anna has always made friends easily, but as other children her age became more verbal, I began to notice a barrier forming between her and them. It’s been two years, but this incident still sticks with me. She had just turned four, and it was the first time she was excluded because of her Apraxia.
We were at our local mall's playland that day—one of Anna’s favorite places to play. She likes the waterfall themed slide, the hollow log topped with a lounging bear, and the big red canoe. I like that there's only one way in or out so it's easy to keep an eye on her.
I sat by the entrance as I always do. I had my notebook at hand to catch any cute or funny things Anna might say. She ran around, slid down the slide, and made friends with all the kids—it was spring break so there were lots of kids to play with. She approached an older girl who was sitting on the bear and asked the same question she always does:
"Do you want to play with me?" The girl didn't understand, so I repeated it.
"She got a bit of an accent," the girl replied.
"Yeah," I said. "She's in speech therapy."
The girl shrugged her shoulders, slid off the bear, and ran over to the slide. Anna followed, of course, like she always does when she wants to be friends.
A few minutes later, I saw Anna talking to the older girl, who sat by the slide with two other girls closer to Anna's age. The girls struggled to understand Anna so I walked over and helped translate:
"She said 'My name is Anna, what's your name?’”
"I'm Whitney," the older girl said.
"Do you want to play with me?" Anna asked again. I repeated what Anna said so the girls would understand.
"This game's for three," Whitney said. "I'm the mommy cat, and they're the kittens."
I wasn't sure if the girls were excluding Anna on purpose, or if they’d created a three-person game, but I quickly thought of a way they could include her.
"Can't there be three kittens?" I asked. "Like the song?" I sang a verse of The Three Little Kittens. Anna and the two younger girls smiled, but Whitney shook her head.
"This is a different game.” She got up and walked away. The two younger girls followed her. Anna started off too, but I called her over.
"Anna, they’ve already started their game."
She pouted. “But I want to play with them.”
"There are lots of kids here. Why don't you find another one to play with?”
I gave her a hug and sent her on her way. Within five minutes, she and another girl were running around the play area, sliding down the slide, and laughing. She was over the snub.
But me? Not so much. It's something I've worried about since she was first diagnosed with Apraxia. She's always made friends so easily, but as she grows older, will she be seen as different and shunned by some of the kids? Her speech is improving rapidly, but she may need years of therapy to be completely understandable and even then she may never lose her "accent."
How will she handle the rejection? How will I? How much do I shield her? How much do I let her experience so she can learn to take it and ultimately ignore it?
Those questions were on my mind the rest of the day, and they’ve nagged at me ever since. Every time she enters a new social situation, I always wonder if she’ll be singled out because of her speech.
Almost two years have passed since that day at the mall. She’s six now, and has just started the second semester of Kindergarten in our neighborhood public school. She still has trouble being understood at times, but she's had no trouble making friends. Her outgoing personality and our constant encouragement have made a big difference. So has her ongoing therapy. Other than her “accent,” her classmates see her as another girl in their class.
If you are a parent of a child about to enter school, and you're worried about how your child will fit in, I hope that I've eased your worries a little bit. Yes it can be difficult, but in my experience it's never as bad as we imagine it will be. Take advantage of all the support that's given to you, and then let your child have fun.
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Biography: David Ozab is currently editing and revising his first non-fiction book, A Smile for Anna, which tells the story of his daughter’s cleft diagnosis and surgery, her difficulties with speech, and her incredible outgoing spirit through it all. He is a Contributing Editor at About This Particular Macintosh and a Guest Contributor at MyEugene. His writing has been (or will be) featured such diverse publications as Chicken Soup for the Soul, Errant Parent, and Catholic Digest. He is a stay-at-home dad and blogs about parenting and life at Fatherhood Etc (http://www.fatherhoodetc.com/). He lives in Oregon with his wife Julia, his daughter Anna, and two lop rabbits named Jellybean and Oreo.
Links:
David Ozab: Writer http://www.davidozab.com/ Salem, Oregon
