Questions about ProEFA

[Guest guest]

Betsy,

My daughter had about five word approximations when I started her on ProEFA

that were intelligible to me but not to others: mama & dada, me & more

(which took her speech therapist months and months - teacher her first the

signs for and then the word), and a sound she made for her brother which only

we understood. The ProEFA did not make her " take off, " the way it has for

others. It was more of a slow process. I really did not see results until

she was on it for about 2 weeks. She began to be able to concentrate more on

her therapies, her attention span increased, and she began to be more

" stimulable " - able to attempt to repeat sounds and words more easily. Her

therapists remarked about this and they did not even know about the ProEFA.

This was almost a year ago. She is now 2 and 10 months and she is doing so

well that I have to fight the system in order for her to qualify for speech

therapy next year. It still is an effort for her to learn new words and for

her to pronounce the words she has intelligibly - I do not think that this

will ever come easily to her. But, she is doing so much better than I (or

her speech therapist) ever dreamed she would. So don't get discouraged -

this is a long process.

I also hear what you are saying about not talking enough to your son. I used

to have to always make a conscious effort to talk to as much as

possible, because it is difficult when you are not really getting a response

to interact as effectively. My older " typical " son was asking me " why "

questions before he turned two. just started doing this in the past

several weeks. One of 's therapists advised me to " distill my words: "

try to say things slowly (I speak very quickly) and simply with less words

so that it would be easier to imitate.

Hope this has helped - hang in there. It seems that ProEFA does help most

children.

Barbara

[Guest guest]

,

Thanks for addressing my question - I of course don't expect Wiley to speak

in full sentences tomorrow. I'd be thrilled if he could put P with Ooh or M

with Ooh or another vowel. So if he manages that in the coming weeks I'll

be the next ProEFA cheerleader. I guess I just get down at times - even

getting on this listserv was a big step because I found it too scary to

really focus on Wiley's speech delay - like I am starting to get past the

horror of the reflux and g-tube and aspiration days and replacing those

older fears with new ones was kind of distressing. But this feels much

better to belong to this group and thank you so much for having started it

and kept it going. The area I'm in is obviously very hedgy around terms

like apraxia and so on so I had to go against a lot of what was being said

to me to consider it and I'm glad I have. Wiley displays a lot of the

symptoms, the da standing in for everything, the sheer work it took to teach

him how to blow a bubble or blow out a birthday candle. It might not be

apraxia but definitely he has problems with motor coordination and it is

taking a giant toll on his speech.

I do have another question regarding the ProEFA. After the first day on it

(he has only had 4 days on it so far) his bowel movements became regular and

his appetite improved - it was very obvious since before the ProEfa he had

maybe 1 -2 bowel movements a week, and suddenly they happened once a day.

But today he has had really terrible diarrhea. I called his doctor who

confirmed that a stomach flu has hit our area and a lot of people are coming

down with it, so I am assuming it is this bug that has caused today's

problems, but it's unnerving since I did add a new thing in the mix so

recently with the ProEFA. Otherwise he has been allergy symptom free. Has

diarrhea been associated with ProEFA? If not, I'll assume it is the bug

going around. (I'll know the answer soon anyway since I imagine I'm next in

line.)

Thanks for any info you might have on that.

And thanks for the response!

Betsy