I'm Khalid and I'm almost 14 years old. I was born with apraxia that affected my speech and limbs (motor planning). This is about my life, and how I have lived it to the fullest no matter what struggles I had. My most difficult years were grades K -6th. I had severe apraxia when I was 2 years old. I had to go through lots of therapy for ST and OT. I also had problems with kids understanding my speech and some teased me. I did and still have a hard time with my writing and reading. What helped me through that is my parents who helped me out a lot.

I remember in kindergarten I would try to say something and people could not understand me. I thought I was speaking right, thinking that other kids were the ones confused. In 2nd grade I had the best teacher yet. She showed me how to express my thoughts in different ways besides talking and writing. It's hard to explain how much she helped me. That year I had lots of fun in that class. We learned and we had so much fun. That is very rare! In third grade I became aware of how I talked. In speech therapy, my therapist had me listened to recording of my voice, and that's when I realized how different I talked compared to other kids. I had a great therapist named Peter, which was really important to me. He was the one that discovered I had apraxia at age 8. We liked each other and worked hard together. In 3rd, 4th and 5th grade the teasing bugged. But I felt good about myself playing tetherball. I always won my turn! I looked to other things I was really good at. Because of this it helped me, my self worth. In 5th grade I had a cool teacher that helped me out in things I did. He was great with all students and me.

Many of my friends in elementary had some kind of disability. This is fine with me because, I didn't care how they talked or what they looked like. I always liked to play different things with them. When I was in California my first grade year I met this kid and we became friends. His ears were not even and had he wore a hearing aid. He was teased a lot about that. I think it helped us out being friends. I felt bad when we let back to my home state. He was a good friend I left behind. When I was bigger I made other friends, some who had things going on, like a friend who was blind, another friend had ADHD, Learning difficulties, and another dealt with deaf issues. I was cool with them and they were cool with me.

The best part of my life was playing sports. I played soccer since I was 5 to 11 years old. I only had one good coach out there that was actually fun. He taught the team how to play the game well. We rarely scored a goal, but we were about being a team and yes winning is good, but to finish last having a blast was a cool thing. I wish there were more coaches more like him in the game. Most coaches felt I was too slow to play soccer. So I sat out of the game often. I was that bench kid. I did not understand till I was older, that putting it together with verbal apraxia, I also had limb apraxia which affected my feet and hands. That's why my coordination and speed was not good for sports in younger years. I had to practice drills over and over. The work paid off, I became the team's goalie my last year of soccer. Not a bad way to end my soccer years, basketball was the new challenge on my mind.

Toward the end of 5th grade I decided to play basketball. Because of the apraxia in my hands, I stunk with my shot so I stayed at the defense end of the court. I blocked every shot the other team would try to shoot. Until I was able to shoot the ball, this was the most I could do in skills. Then in sixth grade I was better at my shots and I made scores! My friends say it's a miracle, but I think it takes skills and lots of practice. I have continued to improve my game every year. In 7th grade I made the basketball team at my school. I even started the first two games of the season. This was tough for me, to be responsible with my grades and my game! One of my grades went down to a D+ and I had to make a C+ to stay on the team. That was my dad's and the school's rule to keep grades up to stay on the team. I wanted it bad enough and brought my grade up to a B. In basketball over the summer I improved on low post moves and a better range. Plus I can run faster, jump higher and shoot 3 pointers. I believe it will be another great year with the team.

Now that I'm going into 8th grade, I have hope that I will have another successful year. I want to make the honor roll like I did before. This year I will have to attend therapy for writing. I can't write well because it's hard to put down on paper everything I want to say and my hand's gets tired going over mistakes. I'm trying to stay on top of it because this will help my written expression. Occupational therapy will also help with basketball and improve my game average.

My message to kids who have apraxia: I have had some rough days with apraxia, but don't let it get the best of you. Things have ways of looking up I promise. When I was hard on myself my self-esteem went down. Then one day I noticed that every person in the world has to face some kind of problem. I'm not alone, everyone has to work at something challenging. Apraxia is noticeable, but with learning coping strategies for speech it helped me get through some tough spots. Look for people who believe in you. I liked being around people like that. Forget the hang-ups and find your passion in what you like to do. For me it is sports! I had to try at stuff, some times again and again until it finally happened. If I did not give it a try, I would miss out the chance of wondering if I could have done it. Not knowing would have bothered me more. So go for the good stuff in life and believe that you can make your own thing happen!