Bob Moir's son, Colin, had a serious speech disorder that made it difficult for him to sing along with the kids on TV programs like Barney. Moir, a Yale-educated musician who helps produce the performances of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, found that if he sang the lyrics more and more slowly, his son was able to croon along with him. Dr. Mary Sturm, a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center emergency physician, tried to help her son Joshua sing along with classmates by taping the school Thanksgiving pageant and replaying it for him at slow speeds. "I wished there was a product out there that would allow you to do the same thing," said Sturm. "And there were some products ... but they sounded like someone on Valium singing in their garage."

Moir and Sturm believe it is the first professionally recorded children's music CD ever made for kids with speech and language disorders. "I didn't want this to be a therapy session but something they could do just for fun," said Sturm. In each case, the lyrics and melody were slowed to a tempo that parents felt their children's voices could follow, leaving director Michael Moricz to invent a repertoire of rhythms and arrangements bouncy enough to inspire kids to dance. There is a calypso version of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," a rap arrangement of "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe," and a rousing African chorus of "If You're Happy and You Know It" that prompts happy kids to "shout esingo," which means joy in the central African language Lingala. And special care was taken with the Sesame Street anthem "Sing!" to ensure that everybody could keep up with the lines: "Don't worry that it's not good enough for anyone else to hear. Sing. Sing a song."

"Time to Sing!" was produced specifically for children like Colin and Joshua who suffer from speech apraxia, a phonological disorder whose sufferers have trouble initiating sounds and getting sounds into the right sequence to form words.  Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh speech pathologist David Hammer served as recording consultant. He notes that there was more to making "Time to Sing!" than simply figuring out how to slow down the melody and lyrics without losing a

The publication will feature the article "We rescued our child from autism" by Karyn Seroussi. It will also feature the article "What's for dinner?", which was published in the Autism-Asperger's Digest. Written by Lisa Lewis, Ph.D., it provides insight on how to start a gluten-free, casein-free diet. It will also contain a listing of valuable resource contacts and sponsors.