speech therapy, anyone?

[whattheheck]

My DD went through 18 months of speech therapy. It was a game changer. She also had 18 months of PT and OT. They were able to catch her up and she is in kindergarten and has no delays in any area anymore. I know it's hard when you are the only one you know doing it, but I found the longer she was in the program the more people I found also in the program. It's a positive that you are addressing issues now when it has the potential to have the greatest impact.

[tealblue]

DS started speech therapy (well a developmental therapist but they focus on his speech) at 18 months and he's now 22 months. He has probably doubled or tripled his word count, and knows a ton of animal sounds and now colors. We don't do flash cards and his DT comes to daycare once a week for 45 min. In the last week his word count has exploded.

He doesn't complete all his words and it's hard for others to understand some of his words but we are working on them. I actually enjoy that he's getting one on one time with a DT. Ours was an EI program, but we are higher than the median income so we pay a small fee each week for his therapist. We also don't have any friends who have therapy so we've just followed the therapist and our assigned workers at the office.

[scribellesam]

DS is 23 months and seems about where yours is in terms of language. He sounds very similar to mine, especially with the not finishing word sounds, etc. DS knows about 40 words but very few phrases and it's hard for anyone to understand him besides us.

He's not in speech therapy currently but I plan to speak to his pedi about having him evaluated at his two year appointment in a few weeks.

[maybebaby]

DS is 25 months and has been in speech therapy since he was 18 months. He had few words at that appt, so the pedi gave us the option to go ahead and get evaluated. His comprehension is good, but expressive speech is way delayed. I definitely recommend ST, my son is doing really well with it. He is still behind, but we are picking up words each session. I do believe he would get them in his own time, but this is really helping not just him, but me to understand how to help him. She uses techniques that I would never have known to do, and they really make an impact. He has 1 session/week. FWIW, she mentioned that not saying vowels first and not completing words is probably the most common thing she sees. Anyways, I'm a big advocate, it definitely can't hurt!

[SpartanGirl]

Both DS and DD2 are in speech therapy. DS qualified when he was 3. He started with 2x per week, qualified for summer services (we have therapy through our public school district), increased his sessions to 3x per week and now, in Kindergarten, he gets pulled on average 8-9 times per month for speech services. It's been a lot of repetitive work, but he sounds SO much better. In fact I have his IEP progress meeting this morning, and I'm thinking we're going to start talking about an exit strategy.

DS's issues were similar to what you describe. He talked a lot (he was a late talker in general) but dropped initial and final sounds in words. So the word "cat" became "ah." It made him very hard to understand. They've been focusing on one or two sounds in a specific position in a word and gradually increasing it from word level (for example, pronouncing just the 'c' sound in the word 'cat') and gradually building it to saying it correctly in a short sentence, then in conversation. Then they would move the sound to a different position in the word. It has worked really well for him.

DD2 started speech at 3 as well. She currently goes 3x per week and will drop down to 2x per week next year. Her therapist predicts she'll be caught up by the time she's ready to start Kindergarten. We have some other speech issues beyond pronunciation so we're in a wait and see on services for her at this point.

If you ever have questions or want to chat feel free to PM me.

[Marmee]

That's great that you are going in early & getting such support!

My DD1 was referred at 3 by her preschool teacher & I had an eval & she was within normal range. FTR, she didnt really talk much at all before age 2. Fast forward another year or so & her other preschool teacher also brought it up. I paid another $400 (she was 4 or 5 by then)for another eval. She qualified as delayed by then. She had articulation issues with blends, "l", "r". She talked a lot and very fast also. She ST also picked up her reversals in speaking & we ended up with a dyslexia Dx after getting an eval on the ST recommendation. She ended up in ST about 1.5yrs and Syslexia tutoring the same amount (though it started toward the end of the ST(. Since she was older than 3 & in private school we paid everything out of pocket & it was tens of thousands of dollars. I definitely recommend getting it checked out as early as possible if anything seems off. Glad you are dealing with it now...he'll be caught up in no time flat!

[Deleted]

We had an assessment done in January and they gave us some things to do at home, but she said he'd probably improve a lot on his own. He has - it's been incredible how much things have changed in just a few months. His speech issues were directly related to his hearing issues that tubes solved (in September). He was very much like you're describing - his words had no endings and he was VERY difficult to understand.

I hope you see a fairly rapid improvement. We've got a follow up coming in June, and then I think we'll probably be cut loose.

[meij]

My DD started speech therapy through Early Intervention a few months before she was two. Her receptive language (what she understood) was advanced for her age, but her communicative language was that of a thirteen month old at twenty two months.

She did weekly in house therapy until she aged out of EI at three. Then she went to the school district and had three times a week therapy. After one year of that her team decided she needed more and she's completing her first year of special education preschool. She gets several hours a week there. We've noticed the greatest improvement in her speech this past year, but I'd still put her at a year behind, sound wise. She talks all the time now, she is just a little hard to understand and has trouble with a lot of sounds. But everyone can understand her now, where a year ago just family could.

It's vet hard! I always feel like there is more I could be doing, is there more therapy she could benefit from?

A very hard part for me was I felt like I could never brag on my kid when all my friends were. What my kid was finally accomplishing, their kids had done months and months before. I hated the awkward pity looks when I would. It just sucked.

[h]

DS2 started speech therapy a couple months ago when he was almost 4. He has always been on track developmentally for language and has had a strong vocabulary for a long time now, but his articulation is poor. Our family and his teachers understand him, but strangers and other kids miss probably 50% of what he says. I asked our pediatrician and his preschool teachers about speech therapy earlier but was told that he was within normal range and to give him until 4 to improve on his own. When it became clear that wasn't happening, we started therapy. We pay out of pocket ($180 a month).

DS2 loves going to speech, and it is definitely helping. He's been working on S, S blends, Sh, and Ch sounds. His therapist thinks he'll be in therapy for 12-18 months. His issues are kind of weird--he does a lot of substituting sounds (mostly subbing Ds for everything else).

I sometimes worry that he'll never speak totally normally or will struggle socially because of this, but I try to remind myself that I was in speech therapy when I was 4 and 5 for similar issues, and I am fine.

[hocus2]

Apr 23, 2014 7:43:21 GMT -5 kylerules said:

Examples include: Ant= ahh, ouch= owe. He doesn't say mama to me, he calls me daddy. He can't complete any word that starts with a vowel and ends in a consonant and the speech therapist said this is something he should know. How is your child doing? How did speech go for him/her?

   
Calling parents by the other tittle (daddy for mommy, mommy for daddy) is very common and I'm not sure this is a speech delay issue. 

We never went through speech therapy and my son was in a pretty similar spot at 22 months. My son had maybe 20 words at 2 and not all were understandable to anyone other than me and DH. He's right where he needs to be 9 months later. He still did a lot of non-verbal communication (standing at the door because we want to go out, pointing and stamping).

[Deleted]

Like @tokenhoser we had speech therapy after my DS had tubes put in (plus tonsils and adenoids removed). The surgery was at 2.5 years old and we self-referred for an assessment that lead to speech therapy at 3 years old.

I guess I'm going to be the sad story here in that speech therapy hasn't helped us a lot. DS is still almost a year behind in his language. We've saw a lot of improvement in the year after his tubes were put in but there is still a gap. Our speech therapists don't think it warrants 1 to 1 help so the help we have received is assessment every 6 months and then a follow up package of things to do at home.

While speech therapy hasn't been the miracle we thought it would be we are, of course, still happy we pursued it. I think our son is just going to take a while to close the gap in language from not hearing much for the first 2.5 years of his life.

[jessnpaul]

B's been working with a Developmental Instructor since he was a year old (also PT twice a week and OT once a week). He's still behind, but has caught up tremendously and it's been worth it!

I'm the only one I know who's kid is in EI and it's sometimes hard to be "that mom". I get it.

[stephm0188]

We've been in ST since 18 months.
He turns 6 next week and has at least another year ahead of him.

[cep1976]

My daughter has been in PT since 6 months, speech/feeding therapy since just before 12 months, and also has a developmental instructor who works with her as a complement to those services. She's 21 months, and doesn't walk and has few words, though there's nothing diagnostically wrong with her, she's just on her own timeline. Her cognitive abilities and receptive language are great.

Anyway, I don't know anyone else who has gone through this and yes, it's very tough. My experience with EI has also made me feel like a crappy parent at times.

She's made great progress, but it's not always linear. She can make several huge strides very quickly, and then progress slows for awhile.

[jessnpaul]

Apr 23, 2014 12:46:58 GMT -5 kylerules said:

Apr 23, 2014 12:00:10 GMT -5 jessnpaul said:

B's been working with a Developmental Instructor since he was a year old (also PT twice a week and OT once a week). He's still behind, but has caught up tremendously and it's been worth it!

I'm the only one I know who's kid is in EI and it's sometimes hard to be "that mom". I get it.

Yes! I was telling a non-parent friend of mine alittle about DS1's struggles with speech and how it was hard to see (so and so's) kid so advanced and all she said was "She is like a super mom though" Um okay, thanks, I suck as a parent because my child is alittle delayed. Sometimes that's exactly what it makes me feel like.

You're not a bad mom. In fact, sometimes I think we're the Super Moms because we have to work all that much harder for our kids to catch up to "normal" kids. 

**Patting ourselves on the back since no one else does... ;-)

[twinsinmd]

I'm a SLP whose son is in Speech Therapy. Just FYI: Deleting the final consonant off of words is typical until about age 3. Most SLPs don't target articulation (the production of sounds) until 3 because it's *really* difficult for little ones to pay attention enough, and there are a lot of "phonological processes" (patterns of sound errors that typically developing children use to simplify speech as they are learning to talk) until 3/4 years of age. My son was receiving speech therapy for language (he had less than 5 words at 18 months and was super frustrated and would hit/bite), and we dismissed him at 24 months, but kept him on because of his articulation errors. The SLP and I just had a long talk about should we dismiss him until 3 because I know we won't see much improvement that wouldn't have probably occurred on it's own. We've decided to keep him on because of the combination of both of us (and it's good for me to have the person to touch base with so I can follow through at home-I specialize in slightly older kids).

It's been REALLY tough even being a parent with all my knowledge, so be easy on yourself-you are doing a great job!!!!

[Deleted]

I haven't read the other posts, but I will say that DD has been in speech therapy since she was 15 mos. Initially it was for cognitive concerns, but now it's just for articulation. I will say that since articulation is about practice, when they progress to that point, they often want to see them more often. We had the option to decline more sessions because I just couldn't handle it with my schedule. I think it was fine.

I hear you too on the "barely qualifying." DD has been borderline for both EI and Child Find, and it's a little disheartening that she qualified. But at the end of the day it's helping her, so I focus on that.

[twinsinmd]

Apr 23, 2014 13:54:02 GMT -5 kylerules said:

Apr 23, 2014 13:26:23 GMT -5 twinsinmd said:

I'm a SLP whose son is in Speech Therapy. Just FYI: Deleting the final consonant off of words is typical until about age 3. Most SLPs don't target articulation (the production of sounds) until 3 because it's *really* difficult for little ones to pay attention enough, and there are a lot of "phonological processes" (patterns of sound errors that typically developing children use to simplify speech as they are learning to talk) until 3/4 years of age. My son was receiving speech therapy for language (he had less than 5 words at 18 months and was super frustrated and would hit/bite), and we dismissed him at 24 months, but kept him on because of his articulation errors. The SLP and I just had a long talk about should we dismiss him until 3 because I know we won't see much improvement that wouldn't have probably occurred on it's own. We've decided to keep him on because of the combination of both of us (and it's good for me to have the person to touch base with so I can follow through at home-I specialize in slightly older kids).

It's been REALLY tough even being a parent with all my knowledge, so be easy on yourself-you are doing a great job!!!!

Yeah, It's really hard for him to pay attention and he usually ignores her when she is here... We had a second set of flash cards to work on and the words were : On, out, in, ouch, oat, up .. a few others I can't think of but he attempts to say all of these he just doesn't finish the word. I asked her how he could go from "barely" qualifying to needing a more intensive approach and she basically said that 24 months is  the age of an explosion and he should be talking to her more and responding when she says something to him. He only has a couple 2 word sentences and he doesn't use them all the time so I will take whatever she wants to do and go with it because I want him to be caught up to his peers and not have trouble down the line.

By 24 months, it was suggested that DS have some two word phrases and about 50 words.  That's all that mattered.  Which it sounds like he has.  DS has continued to grow by leaps and bounds-today he said "Mama daddy go dance" and was completely understandable, so I think to expect a 23 month old to sit and do flash cards is a little crazy.  He isn't even 24 months and the provider has already decided he missed it? 

Are you sure she is a full SLP-masters degree plus her CCC's (Certificate of clinical competency)? 

Also, by 24 months the only sounds expected for typically developing kids is really "p" "b" "m".  The "t"  and "n" sounds aren't expected until 3.5, and don't even get me started on "ouch" with is something called a dipthong (two sounds make up one) for the "ou" and the "ch" sound isn't expected until 7. 

Take a look at this chart-http://www.speakingofspeech.info/caseload/IowaNebraskaNormsMALE.pdf

Has he had a lot of ear infections?

[teeah22]

My DS is 4 and started speech at about 2.5, although we took a break from it for a few reasons for several months. After he turned 3 the pedi got serious about it. He goes to special needs preschool through our school district. I'd say he's still maybe 9-12 months behind his peers but he's doing much better. The more I talk to people about this, the more I think that some kids just develop their speech later; I think these issues are so much more common than we realize. People don't talk about it though, which can make you feel very alone.

[hocus2]

Apr 23, 2014 13:54:02 GMT -5 kylerules said:

Apr 23, 2014 13:26:23 GMT -5 twinsinmd said:

I'm a SLP whose son is in Speech Therapy. Just FYI: Deleting the final consonant off of words is typical until about age 3. Most SLPs don't target articulation (the production of sounds) until 3 because it's *really* difficult for little ones to pay attention enough, and there are a lot of "phonological processes" (patterns of sound errors that typically developing children use to simplify speech as they are learning to talk) until 3/4 years of age. My son was receiving speech therapy for language (he had less than 5 words at 18 months and was super frustrated and would hit/bite), and we dismissed him at 24 months, but kept him on because of his articulation errors. The SLP and I just had a long talk about should we dismiss him until 3 because I know we won't see much improvement that wouldn't have probably occurred on it's own. We've decided to keep him on because of the combination of both of us (and it's good for me to have the person to touch base with so I can follow through at home-I specialize in slightly older kids).

It's been REALLY tough even being a parent with all my knowledge, so be easy on yourself-you are doing a great job!!!!

Yeah, It's really hard for him to pay attention and he usually ignores her when she is here... We had a second set of flash cards to work on and the words were : On, out, in, ouch, oat, up .. a few others I can't think of but he attempts to say all of these he just doesn't finish the word. I asked her how he could go from "barely" qualifying to needing a more intensive approach and she basically said that 24 months is  the age of an explosion and he should be talking to her more and responding when she says something to him. He only has a couple 2 word sentences and he doesn't use them all the time so I will take whatever she wants to do and go with it because I want him to be caught up to his peers and not have trouble down the line.

  Our word explosion happened closer to 2.5. My son did gain a few words each week before that so I suppose they weren't concerned.

[Deleted]

If he's not paying attention to the therapist, that's a problem with the therapist. DD LOVED her EI ST. Loved her. It was playtime. And she could get DD to do things I couldn't.

[scribellesam]

Apr 23, 2014 12:46:58 GMT -5 kylerules said:

Apr 23, 2014 12:00:10 GMT -5 jessnpaul said:

B's been working with a Developmental Instructor since he was a year old (also PT twice a week and OT once a week). He's still behind, but has caught up tremendously and it's been worth it!

I'm the only one I know who's kid is in EI and it's sometimes hard to be "that mom". I get it.

Yes! I was telling a non-parent friend of mine alittle about DS1's struggles with speech and how it was hard to see (so and so's) kid so advanced and all she said was "She is like a super mom though" Um okay, thanks, I suck as a parent because my child is alittle delayed. Sometimes that's exactly what it makes me feel like.

Ooh this makes me so mad! I refuse to be embarrassed or ashamed because DS is possibly delayed and may need EI. Every kid has different strengths and challenges and it has nothing to do with the quality of your parenting.