Summer's Journey

2023 felt like a very long year, but it was also very short! The year just flew by with only one blog post in May! I had time for five in 2022.) Anyway, this is the first year post-pandemic that things are back to normal, more or less. There had been many changes in Summer's and in my personal life - some good, some not so good. However, Summer's word for 2023 is 'Gratitude', so regardless of circumstances, I (we) give thanks.  OFF TO SCHOOL The year started off with Jacelyn, our Early Childhood Interventionist cum Speech Therapy Assistant, leaving us for her studies. She went to pursue her Masters of Science (Speech and Language Pathology) at NUS. When we first met in December 2021, she was a passionate young lady who was tired of the special needs field. The politics of the field has zapped all her energy from the actual work with the children. She was at the cross road of her life. Wondering what her next step should be, Jacelyn was introduced to me by an ABA therapi...

"There will be a late cancellation fee of $100 for cancellations made within 12 hours of session time." From February 2023, it was with a heavy heart that I decided that Summer's should have a cancellation policy. Since I started Summer's in 2015, we never had a cancellation policy, for the full 7-8 years. It is because I strongly believe the following: (1) All parents knows that our therapy is beneficial and will not be absent without valid reasons.  (2) Young children fall sick often; young children with special needs fall sick even more often.  (3) Children with special needs may have sudden meltdowns, making last minute cancellations unavoidable.  (4) Summer's will have enough profit margin to buffer 'last minute cancellations without penalty'. (It would also give my staff members some down time for other work such as preparing for sessions, reading up on the latest research, or even just some me-time.)  We did have enough to buffer for last minute can...

I thought I was going to be late for this year's Thanksgiving post! But I made it before the year ends. I was away for the last two weeks to attend my best friend's wedding and just returned two days ago. It was in Las Vegas, and then I took the opportunity to visit New York during Christmas. Just wanted to see Christmas movies come alive. Hah!  An amazing experience in New York the week before Christmas - to see the bustling streets and beautiful deco.  Plus experiencing a cold wave of -14 degrees! Brrrrrr! And so here are some of the many things I am thankful for in 2022... BUSINESS 2022 has been a long year at Summer's. We started off with much hope of expanding the company - we were looking for a new location for a bigger center, as well as securing new Speech Therapist hires. A post-pandemic recovery had been forecasted and we were looking at expansion. But God seemed to have other plans - or rather, He protected Summer's for the storm that was coming ahead. Singap...

Finally! After 2 years 8 months, I made my first overseas consultation trip last week. It was to Jakarta, Indonesia.  The four kids whom I have been working with are no longer kids! Within the last two years, they have grown from tweens to teens (and one of them entered adulthood)! They are now all taller than me, have facial hairs and deeeeeep manly voices.  It was a joy to see them again. And I was super delighted to see them with fresh eyes. My fresh eyes are eyes of Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy (OMT).  Summer's specialises in Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy! Two of us have each undergone 30 hours of specialised training in OMT. Being a specialist in OMT, all of the sudden, I noticed many more recessed jaws, over used chin muscles, flanged lips, posterior tongue ties, low tongue placements, dried cracked lips, dark eye circles and many more. The 'perfect' tongue lateralisations and elevations were no longer perfect. The 'perfect' blowing were no longer perfect...

This is interesting... Last Saturday morning, I had a home-based session. The kiddo, TK, has Autism and has been having speech therapy with me since 2015. He turned 11 this year. His behaviour in sessions has never been the best. At times, he would be lying on the bed or trying to walk on the railings of his bunk bed. But today was one of his better days.  After working on his processing skills for 20 minutes (and this can be quite tiring for him), TK transited to narrative writing task without fuss! He did not even need a break. I was elated! "Yes! Today I can push him more!" I thought to myself. However, at this very moment, his mother entered the room. She came in with two plates - on one of the plates, there was a wrapped ice cream and on the other, an unwrapped one. She passed me the wrapped ice cream and told me to enjoy. Then she passed TK the plate with the unwrapped ice cream. She told him, "Here, you said you wanted an ice cream right...? You want to try this n...

The March school holidays flew past just like that. Tomorrow is the first day of school for Term 2!  In this blog post, let me share about YY, one of the children who has been attending Be@Summer's since January 2022.  YY is 10 years old and has Autism. She has been attending Speech Therapy sessions with us since 2018. When she first started with us at 6 years old, she was completely non-verbal and now, she is able to speak in short sentences. Her sessions were on a fortnightly basis due to financial constraints. However, thankful to the consistent follow-up from the family, YY started talking about six months into therapy! Sadly... things started to go downhill in mid 2021. YY started to display 'obsessive compulsive' behaviours and compliance in sessions reduced significantly. In every session, a lot of time was spent on behaviour management and little targeted work was done. Her family also started to have a lot of difficulties doing the homework with her. Towards the en...