Guest guest Posted February 7, 2002 Report Share Posted February 7, 2002 Hi! Welcome to the site. Our children sound very similar so I'd be glad to share my experiences. My son will be three in April; he has been diagnosed as PDD, oral and verbal apraxic, SID and hypotonic in the upper body, hypertonic in the lower body. First, we found that months of " regular " speech therapy did no good. What worked for Joe was a touch-cue method; ideally, we wanted PROMPT but have not been able to find a certified therapist. Joe's current SLPs incorporate ABA techniques with the touch-cue method. Before starting this type of therapy, Joe was non-verbal . After two visits, he began speaking, asking for juice, cookies and to get down from his booster seat ( he would say " down " for this and to go outside as well). He is now very imitative and copying more and more words each day. What needs work is his initiating speech; he needs to be prompted to speak or he imitates instead of spontaneous speech. Second, we started Joe on Complete Omega from Nordic Naturals in November 2001. His speech and vocabulary increased shortly thereafter but since we also started the speech therapy discussed above at the same time, we weren't sure what the Omega-3s' effect really was. In January, Joe got a horrible stomach virus. we stopped giving him Omega-3s for about two weeks, maybe a little more. In that time, his speech skills and clarity decreased. We put Joe back on the supplements and within a week, he was back to where he was before he got sick. This experience has us convinced that the fatty acids are playing a role in Joe's development. We have since increased his dosage (with his ped's approval) from one pill a day to two. As a side note, Joe sang the " ABCs " all the way through for the first time last night; some letters need work but he did it. I hope this information helps you somewhat. If you want to know anything else, please let me know. Jim (complete omega and ProEFA are the same) --- lollipop11230 <ltathome80@...> wrote: > HI. I'M NEW TO THIS SITE. I JOINED THE SPEECH DIET > WEB SITE A FEW > WEEKS AGO AND NOW DECIDED TO PICK THE BRAINS OF THE > PEOPLE ON THIS > SITE. MY SON AS DIAGNOSED WITH ORAL AND VERBAL > APRAXIA. HE IS > HYPOTONIC AND IS SID. HE IS THREE YEARS OLD ND > SPEECH AS WELL AS HIS > ATTENTION/FOCUSING ARE OUR MAIN CONCERNS. WE JUST > FINALLY STARTED > WITH DECENT SPEECH THERAPISTS AND ARE SEEING SLOW > PROGRESS. I ALSO > JUST STARTED HIM ON PRO EFA. DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE > OR HAD A SIMILAR > SITUATION? WHAT CAN I EXPECT? DOES THE PRO EFA > REALLY HELP? HOW LONG > DOES IT TAKE TO WORK? > > > __________________________________________________ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 8, 2002 Report Share Posted February 8, 2002 Dear Jim and Ann, I just read your post about your son Joe. Congratulations to him for the progress and congrats to you for being such great parents. My son Jack was diagnosed with Moderate/severe oral Apraxia, SID and PDD-nos in September. We started the pro-efa's on September 5th, Jack at the time had about 10 intellegible words and a few unintellegible words, he rarely initiated speech and would rather play alone than even with me and especially other children. He receives lots of therapy, including 6 1/2 hrs of 1:1 from a program that deals with children that are of the autistic spectrum (a model program). Within 6 weeks of the efa's he came out of his shell. 4 1/2 months later he is doing awesome, the pdd diagnosis has been revoked YEAH!! his play skills still need some work but he does not qualify for services so the dr said no because he is showing no signs for pdd. His speech has been amazing 4-5 word sentences and he was just evaluated for speech and his slp said he is now mildly apraxic. His articulation is great still his expressive is not so great but he initiates speech all the time in fact I need to tell him to be quiet sometimes, he imitates very well. He sings now and counts to 15 all by himself. I am convinced the efa's have helped my little guy so much, but I also commend his Private SLP, and the other therapist that help him. So just wanted to congratulate Joe on singing his abc's, I love hearing great things like that cause I know how it feels to hear progress. You are so happy you want to cry. Good luck to you and your son. Sincerely Eileen mom to JAck 2 1/2, and 14 months --- Jim and Ann Carlone <jacenterprise@...> wrote: > Hi! Welcome to the site. Our children sound very > similar so I'd be glad to share my experiences. My > son will be three in April; he has been diagnosed as > PDD, oral and verbal apraxic, SID and hypotonic in > the > upper body, hypertonic in the lower body. > > First, we found that months of " regular " speech > therapy did no good. What worked for Joe was a > touch-cue method; ideally, we wanted PROMPT but have > not been able to find a certified therapist. Joe's > current SLPs incorporate ABA techniques with the > touch-cue method. Before starting this type of > therapy, Joe was non-verbal . After two visits, he > began speaking, asking for juice, cookies and to get > down from his booster seat ( he would say " down " for > this and to go outside as well). He is now very > imitative and copying more and more words each day. > What needs work is his initiating speech; he needs > to > be prompted to speak or he imitates instead of > spontaneous speech. > > Second, we started Joe on Complete Omega from Nordic > Naturals in November 2001. His speech and vocabulary > increased shortly thereafter but since we also > started > the speech therapy discussed above at the same time, > we weren't sure what the Omega-3s' effect really > was. > In January, Joe got a horrible stomach virus. we > stopped giving him Omega-3s for about two weeks, > maybe > a little more. In that time, his speech skills and > clarity decreased. We put Joe back on the > supplements > and within a week, he was back to where he was > before > he got sick. This experience has us convinced that > the > fatty acids are playing a role in Joe's development. > We have since increased his dosage (with his ped's > approval) from one pill a day to two. As a side > note, > Joe sang the " ABCs " all the way through for the > first > time last night; some letters need work but he did > it. > > I hope this information helps you somewhat. If you > want to know anything else, please let me know. > > Jim > > (complete omega and ProEFA are the same) > --- lollipop11230 <ltathome80@...> wrote: > > HI. I'M NEW TO THIS SITE. I JOINED THE SPEECH DIET > > WEB SITE A FEW > > WEEKS AGO AND NOW DECIDED TO PICK THE BRAINS OF > THE > > PEOPLE ON THIS > > SITE. MY SON AS DIAGNOSED WITH ORAL AND VERBAL > > APRAXIA. HE IS > > HYPOTONIC AND IS SID. HE IS THREE YEARS OLD ND > > SPEECH AS WELL AS HIS > > ATTENTION/FOCUSING ARE OUR MAIN CONCERNS. WE JUST > > FINALLY STARTED > > WITH DECENT SPEECH THERAPISTS AND ARE SEEING SLOW > > PROGRESS. I ALSO > > JUST STARTED HIM ON PRO EFA. DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE > > OR HAD A SIMILAR > > SITUATION? WHAT CAN I EXPECT? DOES THE PRO EFA > > REALLY HELP? HOW LONG > > DOES IT TAKE TO WORK? > > > > > > > > > __________________________________________________ > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 8, 2002 Report Share Posted February 8, 2002 Eileen: Thank you for your post but my respect is for people like yourself who deal with all the issues surrounding a " special needs " child/children and take the time to post here (and other sites) regularly to share information and advice. I've only lurked here and a the apraxia site since our son's initial diagnosis in May 2001. We just had a meeting with our son's EI teacher and service coordinator; Joe is doing so well that they're going to start brining him down the day care to socialize with the other children. The teacher said that Joe may not need ABA past September. Joe's developmental ped indicated this may mean he may not qualify for a PDD diagnosis past the summer. So, we've come a long way in a short time and we're feeling pretty good right now. We just pushed where we needed to and tried a mix of therapies and so far, thanks to God, it seems we made the right choices. Like your Jack, Joe's therapy schedule is intense, about 35 hours a week. Not needing the ABA would make a huge difference for Joe. It's great for us to see stories like Jack's because it gave us hope in the beginning when we were overwhelmed and just downright depressed; it excites us now because we can see the same good things happening with ph. Thanks again for all of your posts. --- eileen galusha <seanzonigal@...> wrote: > Dear Jim and Ann, > I just read your post about your son Joe. > Congratulations to him for the progress and congrats > to you for being such great parents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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