The previous video if from last year’s Christmas project for Reece’s Rainbow, a nonprofit organization that helps children with Down Syndrome find homes. There will be a new Christmas campaign this year. Keep checking back to see what you can do this year to help.

Adoption is one of those truly beautiful things that a person can do for someone else. My father was adopted and several family friends have adopted children who otherwise would be going to bed every night without a hug, kiss, and an “I love you” if it were not for the love and willingness to adopt on the part of their parents.

While there area thousands of children across the world waiting for a forever family, one population is often ignored. Children who have special needs are living on borrowed time. These children have been abandoned because their parents could not afford to take care of them, or they could not handle the stigma of having a child with special needs. Eventually these children wind up in institutions and die within a few years due to neglect or lack of proper medical care.

Even if you do not feel personally called to adopt a child with special needs, you can help these children find loving homes in which they can thrive by spreading the word or donating time and/or money to help those who do want to adopt. Someone made the comment to me “Well, we can’t save everyone.” Which is true, but if we can make the difference in one child’s life, that is one child who will live knowing that they are loved and wanted. That comment made to me reminds me of the Starfish story where a man was walking on the beach after a storm and the shore was littered with hundreds of star fish that were washed up by the violent ocean. In the distance he saw a child picking up one starfish at a time and throwing them back into the ocean. The man approached the child and told him not to bother and that he could not save them all. It would make no difference. In response, the child picked up another starfish and threw it back into the waves as hard as he could. He turned to the man and told him that he made a difference to that one.

It does not matter what you do to help these children. The important thing is that you do something. If the whole world sits back and thinks that the task is too big. There is nothing that I can do. Then nothing will be done. It is our duty and human beings to help those less fortunate and to make the world a better place. Let’s face it. The world could use a little more love and concern for those most vulnerable to neglect and indifference.

For full article, click here.

Most parents who find out that their child has Trisomy 18 before birth choose to abort their baby. I applaud Eliot’s parents for choosing life.  Their choice allowed them the precious gift of their son. As his father says in the video:

“An underdeveloped lung,  a heart with hole in it and DNA that placed faulty information into each and every cell in your body could not stop God from revealing himself through a child who never uttered a word. Not a pulpit not a slick presentation not a best selling book, but a six pound boy with Trisomy 18. God found great pleasure to take a lowly thing in the eyes of the world and show truth.”

Please watch this tribute to their son.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It is every parent’s worst nightmare: Learning that there is something wrong with your child. I remember that feeling all to well when a doctor told me that my son Luke probably had Cystic Fibrosis. I felt as though the room was shrinking, my brain went numb, and all I wanted to do was hold my baby and cry. It turns out that my son did not have Cystic Fibrosis, but a rare genetic syndrome called Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome. It was a very long and difficult road to diagnosis and there were many times that I almost forgot about the one person who understood how I felt the most. My husband.

Read More�

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

Click here to view the embedded video.

For more information on Goodsearch, please see this article.

Cases of Apraxia of Speech are on the rise.

Baby Babble or a Sign of Speech Problems.�

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.