Kicking Off Apraxia Awareness Month With Dr. Edythe Strand

Full transcript

Nicole: Hi, it's Nicole coming in from the NYU Motor Speech Lab. I was just having a meeting with Dr. Strand, and we decided we wanted to come in and chat with you. So I'm going to try to get her to join. Let me see here. Oh, I can't invite you. So sad. Can you hear me, Edy? You know what, Edy, I could do it this way. We're meeting via Zoom. Hold on, I'm going to put it on you in one second.

Okay, so Edy and I have been meeting because we are putting together a couple of classes to go over the DEMSS. More on that to come. And I realized that we were meeting on Friday, May 1, the beginning of Apraxia Awareness Month, and I asked if she would want to come in and say a little something to everybody, maybe give some tips for those of you who are making the shift to pediatric motor speech therapy. Edy, I'm going to flip the screen, and I'll let you know when everyone can see you. Okay, here we go. You can go ahead and talk.

Dr. Strand: Hi. This is my first thing on Instagram, except that Jenny interviewed me about the DEMSS a few years ago, and I think I was on her Instagram post. But I have never posted. So hello, and happy Apraxia Awareness Month.

This is so important: making the shift. I know that Nicole talks about this a lot. It's important because we're so well trained in phonology that sometimes it's really, really hard for us to think in terms of how important it is to think about movement in everything we do: how we talk to the children, how we choose our stimuli, and so on. Much too much to talk about here, but that's really an important thing. And I think it's all about not worrying about anything, just opening your mind to a different perspective and a different set of tools for those kids who have apraxia of speech.

Mostly, though, on this Apraxia Awareness Day, Apraxia Appreciation Month, I really want to thank my colleagues who have taken that hard step of making this shift and are trying to learn a lot about motor learning principles, and how we can use those principles to help kids with, especially from my perspective, severe CAS develop verbal communication. You're my heroes, and I really, really appreciate all of you.

Nicole: Thank you so much, Edy.

Dr. Strand: You bet. Now I can say I've been on Instagram.

Nicole: You absolutely have. We're going to be coming in through the month, so if anybody has questions, I can pile up a couple of them. Edy and I have been meeting quite frequently, and I could come in again with her, and maybe she can answer some of your questions. But we wanted to just say happy Apraxia Awareness Month, and we are all in this together. From the NYU Motor Speech Lab, we really appreciate all of your support with the work we've been doing as well. We will be back. Take care, everybody.