A Letter Received

I recently received this email/letter from a parent and wanted to share:

"Hi my name is Danielle and I have a daughter with down syndrome that did your program for about a year. It was great for her and I only wish we would have found you sooner. She has some structural issues so we got stuck with that. My husband and a few friends and myself did her program daily. It was fun to implement and we really did see results. (Renee Roy Hill was our evaluator and we loved her). I am wondering if you have training to become certified or some kind of approval so as to offer your oral motor information to others? I know you have traveling workshops as well. I am not a speech pathologist, just a Mom, that has done this program and NACD program for a lot of years. Let me know if there is any option out there since 6 years of schooling is just too long at this point in my life, I am in my mid 40's. Thank you for your time! Sincerely, Danielle"

I offer my courses to both professionals and parents throughout the world, and I encourage parents to get and stay involved. If you are a parent interested in learning more I will point you to our webpage and phone numbers here and here.

As always, feel free to email me with more questions!

Why Teach?

After 6 weeks on the road I am finally back in Tucson for a little R&R. Teaching my classes in Oral Placement Therapy (OPT) for Speech Clarity and Feeding is one of the joys of my life. Even though this takes me away from home I have felt for a long time that this is what I need to do at this stage in my career. Every once in a while I meet someone who confirms to me, once again, that I have indeed made the correct choice (I wish for everyone to have this experience in their careers).  I was teaching my “Three Part Treatment Plan for Oral-Motor Therapy” class in Springfield, Massachusetts in March.  Just as I was about to walk to the front of the room to begin a women in her mid-fourties rushed to the registration table totally out of breath. She had no idea who I was and said to me, “I have a terrible headache, my daughter is sick and I should be home with her. I have no idea why I am here as I am probably going to quit my job as speech therapy is no longer what I want to do. I didn’t sleep too well last night so forgive me if I rest my head on my arms and fall asleep.” My husband Phil, always the gentleman, led her to her seat and asked her if he could do anything for her.  She just needed rest.

At the end of the second day the same woman, who by the way never did fall asleep, came up to me. This time she took my hand and said, “You have changed my world. For the first time you have explained the science of speech therapy and I cannot wait to get back to my clients on Monday.” What a great day!

So my family and friends, now you know why when you call you never know if I will pick up the cell phone in Tucson or in Canada. Next stop… China.

Reports from Scandanavia!

Cannot believe I am sitting her in Gothenburg, Sweden after a full day of teaching speech therapists here about TalkTools. The excitement is electric and they are so eager to try these techniques with their clients. After the class today we met friends for a dinner of salmon, potatoes and carrots. And they call this work... Life is good!

Accepted to speak at the 2009 ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) Convention in New Orleans

Great news! I see a change in the acceptance of my work and I know this is going to be very good news for a lot of therapists and parents out there. Many of you have seen the benefit of using my “Oral Placement Therapy” (OPT) to improve feeding skills and speech clarity but have been faced with professionals who are told not to work on muscle movements for speech. I think the problem here is that my work has been lumped with others who are working on movements not related to speech. I only work on movements that are related to speech. Well this year at ASHA I am going to be able to present my work to my peers at our national convention. This is a big deal as for the first time I will be in a position to explain what we do at TalkTools Therapy not what they think we do. My presentation is called, “Early Intervention: Oral Placement Therapy for Children with Down Syndrome.” I would love to hear your success stories using my techniques so I can share them at this conference.