Special Family Network

Please take a moment to watch this video about a young boy named Titus who has aplastic anemia. Titus was born with his condition and this cord blood stem cell transplant was his best hope. It is a very informative video that explains how the transplant works.

Please take a moment to read this very special article about a woman who teaches music to people with special needs.

At what turned out to be Jessica’s last lesson, I asked her what rain sounded like. She actually gave this some thought before gently playing a tinkling sound on the higher notes that steadily became more insistent. I again harmonized with chords whenever I could on the electric keyboard. “How about the wind?” I asked. Jessica responded by playing a glissando up and down the keys with varying intensity. “Thunder?” That was easy. She immediately gave a few staccato bursts from the bass keys. “OK! Lets play the music for a short Spring thunder storm.” We dove in. It was wonderful. Not only was it totally free-form, it was VERY musical! All too soon, the lesson was over and Jessica’s father, who usually waited across the street at the local coffee shop but today waited across the hall in our living room, popped his head into the studio and said that it was time to go. Read More

My older son has been in speech therapy for quite a while now. The word Apraxia has been mentioned as a possibility for his speech delay, and, of course, I had to get on the internet to research it. I found a few interesting articles that I thought might be beneficial to those going down the same road or for those looking for answers.

Cases of Apraxia of Speech are on the rise.

Baby Babble or a Sign of Speech Problems.Â

It is unfortunate and sad that so many women choose to abort a child because that child has a disability that he or she had no control over. Every human life is sacred. David MacDonald has been speaking out on behalf of the disabled unborn.

I am a firm believer in the use of baby sign language. My older child is language delayed, so we started teaching him sign language in order to reduce some of the frustrations that both of us were feeling due to his lack of communication skills (pointing and screaming just wasn’t working for us). We plan to teach our younger son, who has Down Syndrome, sign language sometime in the next few months. We used the My Baby Can Talk DVDs and Baby Einstein to learn the basics and used the signs around our son. It only took a few weeks for us to see results.

Below is a good video of a baby using sign language. A baby will not do the signs perfect (When our son says “Thank You” it looks like “Eat” but we know what he is saying) but this will give you an idea as to what to expect.

The United States simply does not have enough special education teachers. Many do not want to go into the rewarding field of special education due to the time (paper work) and patience it takes to be a special education teacher. This article sheds some light on what is going on in this country and what several school districts are trying to about it. The bottom line to me is that people going into education should be encouraged to give special education a chance. Let education college students visit more special ed classrooms and don’t limit curriculum to one special education class (Many universities do this). If you think that working with typically developing children is rewarding, special education can be 10 times better.

This is a good vidoe on how to use an Epi-Pen. It is very important that everyone knows how to use this life saving device with the rise of allergies in this country.

I think that if a person has “normal” vision that it is very difficult for them to imagine what it is like to be visually impaired. This is an interesting video that shows how some people with visual impairments see. It certainly gave me a new perspective on how life would be different if I started to lose my eyesight.

A wonderful article on how Kansas Senator Sam Brownback says not to pressure parents who are going to have a special needs child to have an abortion.