M. Ramsdell
February 21, 2013 to Present.
Meet Devin Ramsdell, he was born September 18th 2009. He is three and a half and Devin is mostly a good boy, like every kid he has good and bad days. Devin however has an issue that not all kids have, he has been diagnosed with speech apraxia. While testing confirms he is very smart he has difficulty speaking. He knows his words just can’t say them right. Speech problems are not all that uncommon for kids Devin’s age and they can range from very mild to severe. Speech apraxia is one of many things that can delay or complicate speech development in children. Autism, hearing issues and vision issues are among some of the problems that can contribute to speech development delays or difficulties.
Devin’s issue with the speech apraxia is that he is able to hear and understand the words but is unable to reproduce the sounds necessary to speak them.
It is sort of like dyslexia of speech.
With intervention the prognosis for kids with this disorder is generally good. Many schools test for and provide preschool programs to help children with this issue, however many schools face budget issues and federal, state and local funding are being cut to school. These programs are in peril of being cut back or curtailed as many governments face crisis. Private insurance is also limiting or eliminating coverage, which it sees as voluntary and non-medical conditions. So many parents and there kids with these conditions who could realize positive outcomes are finding there are less resources available depending on income and insurance.
Devin unfortunately falls into this category. Despite a medical diagnosis insurance has denied his claim. He does attend a public preschool program. His speech development is considered enough of a problem to qualify; still many other children who are borderline or undiagnosed are turned away and denied access. Children who do not receive some sort of intervention may still eventually recover and speak better but are often educationally and socially behind there peers. This slow start leads to low self-esteem intellectual and developmental problems that put them behind in life.
This is the motivation behind Devin’s speech project. It is been created in an effort to help Devin with his speech and eventually maybe even some other at risk kids. There are a number of resources and programs out there, but this project attempts to create just another option. Hopefully, to help parents and children who either have no resources or are looking for an additional tool. Most of the speech programs available are somewhat flashcard based and while helpful, they can be limited on the number of sounds they help the child practice. We were using some of other pay and free speech therapy programs that are considered the standards in speech therapy; I just started doing extra slides to supplement sounds he was struggling with. He soon found these other speech programs boring and liked the slides we were creating better. This meant he would work at it longer, so the project was born. After looking at and using these free and pay programs, it seemed a simple presentation program could be created that would surpass some of the speech programs that were available.
The idea behind this effort was to create a more interactive program that focused on the different sounds, with graphics and sentences that pull the child in. We also wanted to be able to do more than a just a few flashcards or images for each sound we were working on. For each sound we attempted to use a sentence that also used the sound more than once whenever possible. Some letters and sounds lend themselves to this easier than others. Devin’s Speech Program is designed with only with improving a kid’s speech in mind. The words are not always ones the child might encounter but ones that will help work on the sound trying to be mastered. Comprehension is a secondary concern, and while the program is not a reading or vocabulary program it appears to have the side effect of helping with both. This program was not developed by a speech pathologist or speech therapist. We were just looking for additional tools to “work on words”, there are now over 750 slides now, and we still have roughly 20 other sounds and word wall words I expect to add in the coming months.
The ultimate the goal of helping one child has been already met.
Devin has shown phenomenal improvement in the four months we have been working on this. On my purely subjective scale if we were at 10% to 15% in January. We are at about 60% to 65% now after 3 1/2 to four months. The cause of the progress is not just this effort to be fair. First off he is getting older. Second, we are paying for speech therapy and he is also lucky enough to go to preschool for now. Still, effects of the project are undeniable. They have been noticed by the speech therapist and others, he significantly ahead of what would have been normally expected in this time frame.
Now we look to begin to find ways to share this effort.
Everything in the presentations was put together using freeware and was focused on images and animations from open source and free public sites. Every effort has been taken to respect copyrights and an artist’s wishes. Thousands of images and animations were searched to find the ones that were used. The ones that were picked were superior in conveying the concept for the word and sound trying to be taught. Due to the nature of the internet, it is possible and perhaps likely that an image or animation may be subject to copyright. To any artist, photographer, or animator whose work is here and does not want it to be part of the program to help kids with speech issues please email the contact address and your image will be removed. We sincerely apologize ahead of time and only chose your work because it was the best at expressing the idea we were looking for. There are several alternate images for every slide it this project. No profit is being made from the project and the goal from inception has been to keep the effort available to kids and parents for free.
Eventually, we expect to add audio and make the program completely self directed by the child, but that is still a few months away.
The presentations were created and run on Kingsoft’s Presentation Freeware but should run on any application that supports PowerPoint files. The program can be viewed as pictures in either Google Drive or Dropbox. To see the animations, the presentation files will have to be downloaded and played in a program that supports Power Point files. You must be logged in to Google to see or download the files on Google Drive especially if using Internet Explorer. Google Drive works best with the Google browser Chrome.
Kingsoft’s Presentation Freeware can be for free downloaded here.
Devin’s Speech Project:
Online on my blog at: TheLooseCannon.net
Click here to view the presentations at Dropbox
Click here to view the presentations on Google Drive (This link has had issues for some.)
Examples of the project below:
