Dear Family and Friends,

In early 2013, Darius was diagnosed with severe Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), a rare neurological speech disorder that affects 1 out of every 1,000 children. He’s always been severely non-verbal, but the last few years he has improved so much! Going to private speech therapy, trying to imitate what everyone else says, using his communication device more freely, and working hard at home and in school with speech therapy assignments that he has become more intelligible. It makes my heart melt every time someone says they can understand him.

Although he’s still not there yet and continues to struggle each moment he tries to verbally express himself, I couldn’t be more proud of him! He has come such a long way! As a family we have been working so hard together for him to continue with his successes. In our family the small achievements are the BIG wins for us because each day there are challenges that he faces. This has been such a learning journey for all of us.

With that said, we are participating in the Annual Apraxia Walk this year to be held on Saturday, 10/19/2024 in Washington, DC. The walk is being held to benefit the Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America (CASANA). Even though it’s been a while since we have participated in the walk, I have continued to donate and utilize the website since 2013. The organization has not only taught me so much about CAS, but providing such helpful tools for school settings, updating new research on CAS, connecting me to other resources such as local speech language pathologists, new webinars, and more! All fundraising proceeds continue to benefit apraxia research and programs.

We would be grateful if you could donate to TEAM DARIUS and/or join us in the walk to raise awareness. Even $1 is just as a good donation! All proceeds will benefit apraxia research and programs. We're hoping to reach our goal of $1,000 by 10/19/2024.

Love,

Sani, Darius & Samira