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Hi Lisa, remember me.
 
I have info although it is not medical it is my own personal opinion.
 
Start of story:
 
Cody, 3.5 yrs old, diagnosed CD 20 mths, started displaying classic symptoms
at 14 mths, therefore 6 mths of being very sick, loss of weight, muscle
tone, and
SPEECH.  He was starting the "what's that" stage when he started getting
sick and by the time he was diagnosed was basically grunting.  He is now is
special needs classes to get his speech in order for when he starts
kindergarten.
 
He is getting better but he will leave out consenants, say only the first
syllable of a lot of words, and looks like he is playing charades.  He uses
a lot of hand actions/body actions to get his point across.  No one take
offense to this statement, but my sister says he sounds like an Indian, from
the cowboy and Indian movies we watched as youngster, cause he has very few
2 syllable words and lots of vowels.  My friends have a hard time
understanding him and there are times when even we, immediate family, do not
understand him.
 
We recently had him tested for ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder, since there
are 4 children in the family, 2 my husbands, and 2 ours.  The three older
children are ADD so you can understand our concern.  Well he tested highly
probable ADHD, it's hard to test this young, with the "learned behaviour" of
his older siblings and his age.  We have been told to keep an eye on him.
With the testing it also shows the intellect level and he is in the above
average/superior range which only 15% of kids fall into therefore we know
his speech is not due to lack of intelligence.  Also we recently had his
ears tested at the Glenrose Rehab hospital, specializing in specials needs.
We were concerned his speech was due to hearing problems.  Results were that
his ears were perfectly normal and his hearing was perfectly normal.
 
Conclusion:
 
Considering Cody was basically starving to death when he was finally
diagnosed, I personally feel that his speech problem is due to lack of
nutrition to the brain during the 6 mths he was sick.  I feel that if his
brain was being "fed" properly he would not have this problem right now.
His body was able to rebound when he went GF and his speech started again. I
hope the damage isn't permanent and that he will be able to "catch up" to
his age level.
 
 
P.S.  I decided to post to both lists since it is such a long story to
repost and summarize.
 
Karen, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
 
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