This morning it was cold and dark on the beach when i walked Spot, I had a long day at Calendar Club, we found out today, that a Calendar Factory is opening in Kings Lynn, but although cheaper product, it does not appear to be same selection and quality, so we'll see, then I walked home, it was 7.30pm till i could have my tea and take it easy, it was pretty tiring.
This evening when Micheal came home from work, he presented me with some chocolates Ferraro Rocher, when asked what they were for, he said does he need a reason to give his mum a present, it made me feel so much better on an otherwise awful day, it bought tears to my eyes.
Sophie has been having speech problems since a toddler diagnosed as Verbal Dyspraxia although she has been taught sign language and is quite proficient. In September when still nothing was getting done we wrote to the Speech Therapy Department, Norfolk Primary Care Trust, and 3 letters to the Press The Lynn News sent a photographer and did an article on the family, the result of this is Sophie has now started weekly speech therapy sessions through the school, the speech therapist admitted if we hadn't wrote the letters nothing would have happened. Sophie is also becoming increasingly difficult with temper tantrums, we only assume the problem is making others understand her, is causing her distress.
A copy of the letter we sent is below.
We have a beautiful intelligent 7 yr old granddaughter named Sophie, she attends Junior School, and 1st Hunstanton Brownies, however, she cannot talk, she has been diagnosed with Verbal Dyspraxia. You would think at age 7, there would be speech and therapy support, but you could not be more wrong. At age 3 while at playgroup, for 2 months she attended Speech Therapy department in Kings Lynn once a week, till told she could no longer attend, however they concentrated on her understanding and not her speech, there has never been a problem with her understanding, but they didn’t listen. At age 3 she had a picture book to aid her communication, but this became too big and unmanageable. At age 5, we were told that a Speech Therapist would visit Sophie in school once a week, this never happened. Hunstanton First School have been brilliant and we can not fault them, they taught Sophie Sign language and gave her and the family a lot of support. Then at age 7 we had the worry of her moving up to Junior School, in a meeting with the relevant parties, it was agreed that Sophie would have an Electronic Communication Aid in time for the summer holidays, so she would be used to using it by the start of term, once again we were let down, they offered Sophie a picture book, like she had been using in the playgroup, which is just too limiting. The Headmaster spoke to the Speech Therapy Department and the most they could offer was a copy of all the exercises Sophie had been doing at the First School, this is not necessarily wrong, but it still does not help her to communicate.
Sophie needs help in communicating, she is getting angry and frustrated because she cannot make people understand, and it is becoming a real problem, we are getting quite desperate and just don’t know where to go for help. We are constantly being fobbed off by the Speech and Language Department.
The Photo that appeared in the Newspaper.
