ProEFA and results

[Guest guest]

Hi Debra,

It definitely took longer for my daughter to start using spontaneous speech

rather than just imitate. Even now her imitative skills are still far better

than her spontaneous speech, altho that has greatly improved. I still have

to keep reminding her to " use her words, " and I try to get her therapists,

teachers, and other family members to use the same phrase.

She also used to scream and point to what she wanted. Rather than try to get

her to imitate the word for the thing that she wanted, we first taught her

the word " me, " and the sign for it, so that she would ask for something by

pointing to it and saying or signing " me. " I wouldn't give her what she

wanted until she either signed or said " me. " Gradually the screaming stopped

and she began to say and sign me and eventually she stopped doing the sign

and just used the word. We gave her a lot of positive reinforcement for any

word she tried to approximate . . . for awhile she expected everyone to clap

everytime she said anything. When her speech began to improve, and she

had more approximations, she learned to say " give me, " and then as her skills

increased I would prompt her to say " give me cookie " or whatever. I know

that many people think it is cruel to withold what a child wants, but this is

what worked with us. I knew that she was capable of signing and saying me

(altho she was not yet capable of spontaneously saying the word for whatever

she wanted) and that the screaming was really just a bad habit with her. If

she was really tired, or not feeling well, I wouldn't be as strict with this.

Its hard to accept, but learning to speak is a slow process for these kids .

.. its hard to be patient. A year ago I could not imagine that my daughter

would be speaking as well as she is now . . . hang in there! Hope this

helps.

Barbara