These professionals below either directly or indirectly influenced the pursuit and accomplishment of the Chit-Chat Kids™ Book Series:
Thanks first and foremost to my incredible family, for not only supporting me but putting up with me and all my "bright" ideas. Thanks to my husband, Douglas Sullivan, for keeping me grounded and realistic. Thanks to my daughter, Rain Sullivan, for her adorable artwork, and for working way outside the lines of her own busy schedule to accomplish it. Thanks to my dad, Peter Eurich, for taking the pieces and putting them together, for his patient self discipline in transforming his granddaughter's art into computer graphic art, and for always making me feel like the entire project was doable. Thanks to my sons, Sky and Wind, for hugs, tolerance and understanding when my world overflowed its boundaries and crashed into their home. Thanks to my mom, Sigrid Eurich, of Sigi Jewelry Design, for her silent workings in the background on the Chit-Chat Kids™ jewelry, created out of love, dedication and support for children with apraxia of speech and motor speech disorders in general. Thanks to my wonderful executive assistant, Monique Zamarron, who insisted I embark upon this project and encouraged self publishing as such a simple step when I was utterly convinced of its complexity (it wasn't simple, but it's best to see things that way!). Thanks to the many parents who encouraged this work and to one published parent in particular, Stephanie Brill, who fervently supported self publishing as the route to independence and governance over the work. Thanks to California State University East Bay (back then it was Hayward!), for my excellent education and foundation in motor speech disorders. It was my great fortune to have had the opportunity to treat a child with apraxia of speech at this early stage in my career. In particular, thanks to my clinical supervisor, Jo Ryan, who trained me in motor speech intervention and helped me make the first shift among the many that were to come, in my understanding of the difference between academic knowledge and individualized treatment, as well as an incredible start on what would become a huge bag of tricks! In fact, she gave me my first oral-motor backpack of goodies to use with children who presented with motor speech disorders.
Anyone who knows me, will understand, that the fact that the backpack was purple, was indeed, auspicious! Thank you beyond measure, to all the educators whose continuing education courses were the springboard to this work. Thanks to the incredible work of Pam Marshalla, who impacted my understanding of the infinitesimally small steps that were needed to lead a child to speech production and her outstanding emphasis on the conversational framework of speech and language learning that could and should be incorporated early on in a child's treatment program. Thanks (especially) to Nancy Kaufman, MS-CCC/SLP who was clear, concise and organized in her approach. She was among the educators who maintained a basic, classic and academic definition of apraxia of speech and built logically forward in her principle of accepting approximated speech in children's speech production efforts while setting the task of speech production within the context of language learning. Thanks to the dedication and inspiration of Marty Burns, PhD/SLP, who helped round out my understanding of the neurology behind motor speech disorders and to sort out my own convictions about the differential diagnosis of motor speech disorders. Thanks to the wonderful Dr. Daly, who, together with the many contributions from Perspectives - Special Interest Division 4, confirmed my suspicion of the larger umbrella of motor speech disorders that, among many others, included fluency problems and apraxia of speech. His approach helped me incorporate treatment strategies previously designated for apraxia of speech with dysfluent children and to consider treatment outcomes for dysfluent children from a motor speech perspective, with a higher likelihood of resolve than much of the literature had previously lead me to believe possible. Thanks to Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson, for lending conviction to the use of oral motor exercises for all children with motor speech disorders as well as children with AOS in particular, and what should have always been obvious, that oral motor exercises were intended to lead to speech and are but a tool (no pun intended!) among many, in the vast kit with which speech pathologists work. Thanks to all of the authors of The Late Talker, and in particular Dr. Agin, for her support of this work. The Late Talker is and will continue to be an invaluable resource for families with speech production issues, if particularly for children with AOS. Thanks to all the AOS experts within the field of speech and language pathology, who comprise the less than 10% of all SLP's comfortable with the diagnosis and subsequent treatment of AOS and of whom I am proud to be a part.
More basic concepts speech books are on the way!!!
Next up... "I can SAY the colors, all by myself!"