I am excited to be this year’s Chair of the DC Walk for Apraxia!

My daughter Katherine was diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) in 2019, before she was three.

CAS is a motor speech disorder that makes it difficult for children to speak. Children with the diagnosis generally have a good understanding of language and know what they want to say. But they have difficulty learning and carrying out the complex sequence of movements needed to talk.

Katherine is a joyful child and from the beginning she has brought her buoyant spirit to everyone she meets. People stop us on the street to comment on her smile.

Katherine’s joy and resilience, confidence and sociability are particularly remarkable given the challenges that CAS brings with it. Research into CAS is critically underfunded. It does not get needed government attention and funding.

Children with CAS should have three to four speech and language therapy sessions a week. This is almost never covered in a comprehensive way by insurance—and yet without this specialized and intensive therapy, children with CAS may never speak, or will speak with severe impairment.

The prognosis with intensive, specialized therapy is remarkably more positive.

Please join our team—Unicorn Kittens—as we walk to raise awareness at 10am on October 19. Starting at St Joseph’s Church on Second Street, NE, we are going around the Supreme Court, up East Capitol Street and back down Second Street to the Church.  

And please consider donating through the button above--any amount helps!

With warmest wishes,

Nicola