Girl With A Funny Accent

I dream of a day that other's take the time to understand Apraxia. While kids diagnosed fight to be understood by others. They take their time, energy, and effort into being understood-other's get the luxury of dismissing this opportunity to understand Apraxia and someone different than themselves. They don't need to take time out of their day to understand Apraxia nor to understand the person talking. They have the luxury of ignorance. Rather than asking, "Why" or asking, "What is this speech disorder?" These 'others' have the luxury of simply stating, "They speak like a baby" and calling it a day. Or even labeling children as "dumb" and moving on. I thought as a kid, that I had to fight to find my words so everyone can understand me. To an extent I did; through speech therapy and practice, I, like most Apraxia children, work to be understood. That's what we are taught: practice your pronunciation so others can

"Why does everyone have a good voice, and I get stuck with this one..." This question, running through my brain in Elementary School, Middle School, speech therapy sessions, and even today seeing other kids my age with "resolved Apraxia." Worst of all this question of, "Why do I have my accent?" never has a completely adequate answer. Even as a kid, it was something along the lines of, "God gives us all gifts and things we need to work on."  So, my voice isn't a gift? It's something I still need to work on? My voice is a curse -I'd think to myself. I was a cute kid, pretty long hair, and I wasn't the most intelligent but I worked hard-then I'd open my mouth and be damned with chuckles, bullies, and rejected crushes. I hated my voice. I wished sometimes that I was mute. But I loved talking and singing too much, and yelling. I couldn't be mute, I was stuck with my damning voice.  I got older, having

In the State of California, High School Students had to take 3 years of a foreign language or preferably 4 years. Now this Foreign Language requirement, especially with an Apraxia Journey, has mixed reactions. Parents usually freak out because how in the world can their kid learn a different language if it took years of therapy, practice, and work just to speak English. Whereas the kids themselves have a variety of reactions: Some students need to take speech therapy to learn a different language, some just struggle at languages given how their brain works (I'm the same way with Math!), and some even excel. Point blank: There's not a single journey that's the same as the other. I'm often asked about how I learned a foreign language given my speech disorder background, hence this post. I feel quasi-odd describing this, just because how do you describe "how" you learned something. You just ,well, learn it with tutoring, studying, practice, etc. My fore