Laura Baskall Smith’s From-The-Heart Parenting Guide For Kids with Apraxia Heads Off to Exhibit at San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books

The San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books will bring publishers and authors as they display new publications covering a wide range of subjects such as health, parenting, and more.

And for professional speech/language pathologist (SLP) Laura Baskall Smith, it’s another opportunity to help out neurodivergent children with her book, “Overcoming Apraxia.”

Apraxia is a disability characterized by the inability to execute skilled movements or gestures. Much like autism, apraxia is considered a form of neurodivergence and can manifest in young children. It was one of the conditions that Smith was familiar with in the early days of her practice.

However, after giving birth to her daughter, it was found that her little girl was also diagnosed with apraxia. Now that she was in a unique and challenging position of being both parent and professional, she realized that a book with her perspective would be highly valuable for parents in similar situations.

“Overcoming Apraxia” is filled with a lot of handy information that’s widely accepted by expert consensus worldwide. But at the same time, it gets to the point in a lot of important areas and speaks plainly about the answers every parent undoubtedly wants regarding when to get a diagnosis and what comes after.

As with many challenges with neurodiversity awareness, Smith finds that the unwillingness to diagnose early or discourage it remains a big problem for parents. It delays them from getting their affected kids the necessary therapy at an early age and proliferates many more myths about apraxia.

Through her book, she hopes to add her voice to the growing number of experts dispelling such myths and make support for disability more accessible to families that need it.

“Overcoming Apraxia” by Laura Baskall Smith will be on display at the ReadersMagnet exhibit at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. The event will be on August 19, 2023, at 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA. The book is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

For information about Laura Baskall Smith’s SLP practice in the Denver Metro area (as well as more helpful advice on childhood apraxia), visit https://slpmommyofapraxia.com/.

“Overcoming Apraxia”
Author | Laura Baskall Smith
Published date | October 11, 2019
Publisher | Self-Published
Genre | Health

Author Bio
Laura Baskall Smith is first and foremost a mother of two amazing children. She is a practicing speech/language pathologist in the Denver Metro area specializing in a rare neurological speech disorder, childhood apraxia of speech.

Laura is also an author, blogger, and speaker and manages her website and social media accounts under SLP Mommy of Apraxia.

In 2016, Laura won a Media Outreach Award for garnering national attention for the field of speech/language pathology when a chance meeting with famous actress and WWE star Ronda Ronda went viral.

Laura is passionate about apraxia and apraxia awareness and her hope is to ensure every child around the globe has the same opportunity and access to appropriate therapy.

“This is a really great place to start if you’re trying to understand Apraxia of Speech/Verbal Apraxia/CAS. Personally, I felt like our SLPs that we’ve worked with in the past didn’t really explain the disorder to us clearly. A lot of what I tried to research was overly technical for a mom who just wanted to know what our future might look like. Laura writes the book from the perspective of a well-informed parent, so as a mom I not only learned a lot but I also felt incredibly validated in all the emotions I have felt throughout our experience. It’s a quick read and I gave my mom the book to read after I finished it. If you have family members or educators in your child’s life who want to understand, I suggest getting this for them. I even brought it to an IEP meeting as a resource I offered to the team. Laura also has a great social media presence that serves to inform and support the Apraxia of Speech/Verbal Apraxia/CAS community. We need more resources like this in the world.” – Lesley Littell

Contact Information

Jess Paige

Author Relations Officer

ReadersMagnet LLC

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