3 year old speech

[Deleted]

DS has a speech check with the pedi today. At his 3 year well check three months ago, the pedi said DS has a very large vocabulary (a large volume of words), but his enunciation wasn't as clear as it should be. The pedi said at 3 years old a stranger (someone who's not used to hearing DS speak) should be able to understand 75% of what DS says. The pedi at I agreed that it's more like 50%. The pedi said to wait 3 more months to see if DS improved, and that appointment is today. I think DS has improved, but of course I understand 99% of what DS says, so it's hard for me to judge. Like rationally I know he's saying "tookie" but I hear "cookie" out of habit.

What can I expect at the appointment today? Is there speech therapy for 3 year olds? I think you guys said EI stops at 3?

[Deleted]

EI does stop at 3, at that point the school system picks up services. If his enunciation isn't where it should be today you can request an evaluation through the school system. He may receive services that way. And of course there is always private speech therapy that may or may not be covered by your insurance.

[whereintheworld]

Of course there is speech therapy for 3 year olds. Children (and teens!) of all ages need access to services. I'd pursue a referral if you're at all unsure of his progress. Better to err on the side of caution and get him the help he needs to be caught up, or if he is assessed and they don't think he needs any services then fine. I don't know how EI works (I'm in Canada) but I've had insurance cover ST for 2 of my kids in full and it was a hugely positive experience for all of us.

[osulori]

EI does stop at 3 but there are plenty of options for kids older than 3-outpatient therapy, private practice, school based (like through your district) etc. Your pedi may recommend an evaluation, and should be able to recommend a place or provider to go through. If they do, it's one of those things that can only help your son-it's not invasive, there's no pain involved, etc. Either the evaluator will say he's fine or they'll say he could use a little help to get him closer to where he should be.

[Deleted]

You typically do age out of EI at 3 but then your school district must step in to provide services. Either they will do the evaluation themselves or contract it out to another organization, which you can have a hand in selecting. He will be screened by an SLP and a child psychologist and they might recommend a hearing test too. If they find that he qualifies for services, you'll go to a mtg with your SD and they will write up an IEP for him with your agreement which spells out which services he is entitled to and how often he should receive them. It also includes bench marks as a check to make sure he is succeeding with his plan. The services can be provided at your public preschool or a private one with push in services or even home visits. You can call your special Ed dept. to get the ball rolling.

Good luck! I know it feels overwhelming at first but it gets much easier once you have a plan and a team in place to help you. All of these people just want to see children succeed. 

[holly116]

Oh yes there is speech therapy at 3. My almost 5 yo goes once a week. We have the same issue, vocabulary is great, she was an early talker etc but her enunciation isn't there. I could understand her but can look back now and see that I was translating quite a bit for others. Her preschool teacher mentioned it and that's when we started this process. Honestly, I really thought it was something that would just work itself out, I mean, I've never had a four year old! I had no clue that this was an issue that could use an external push.

So, once we were aware, I found out that our county does evaluations and provides services so I called to make an appointment. This was in January. Her appointment was at the end of April. I just wasn't comfortable waiting months, knowing there was an issue. I got a recommendation from our pedi and made an appointment with a private speech therapy office and had her evaluated the very next day. She's been going once a week ever since and LOVES it. They started working on her s sounds and s blends and she has come so far in such a short time. Now it's on to the c and k sounds. We'll continue till she's caught up.

I kept the evaluation with the county but all they did was have her private therapy office fax over her results. She qualifies for speech and will go at school in the fall when she starts kindergarden.

Trying to nip things in the bud, I recently had my 3 yo DS1 evaluated and he's fine. A tad behind on a few sounds but our therapist assured me that he's on track.

To give you an idea of cost, it's going to depend on how your insurance is set up. Our insurance is a high deductible plan, so while we still hadn't met our deductible, her visits were $68 a pop. We paid using our HSA account. Then after DS2 had an er visit and we met our deductible lol, we dropped to the 10% portion of our insurance so each week is only $6.80.

If there's even a slight issue, I say go for the evaluation, even if it's just for peace of mind. At the very least, you'll get a bunch of ideas on what to work on to help him with his sounds.

[scribellesam]

Well now I'm going to worry about my 3yo all day. His own dad doesn't even understand him 75% of the time. We had him evaluated at 27mo and he had a mild delay but didn't qualify for services at the time. I suspect the qualification bar is (unofficially) set even higher now that he's under the jurisdiction of our super cash strapped CA school district.

[holly116]

May 27, 2015 9:52:46 GMT -5 scribellesam said:

Well now I'm going to worry about my 3yo all day. His own dad doesn't even understand him 75% of the time. We had him evaluated at 27mo and he had a mild delay but didn't qualify for services at the time. I suspect the qualification bar is (unofficially) set even higher now that he's under the jurisdiction of our super cash strapped CA school district.

The bar in the state of Kentucky is like 9%. Meaning, to qualify for free speech, your kid has to be in the 9% or less. The insurance line is higher. If you think there's an issue, at least get the evaluation. I know now with DD, it's not something that's just going to go away, kwim. And she has come so far, I really regret not starting earlier.

[cep1976]

May 27, 2015 9:52:46 GMT -5 scribellesam said:

Well now I'm going to worry about my 3yo all day. His own dad doesn't even understand him 75% of the time. We had him evaluated at 27mo and he had a mild delay but didn't qualify for services at the time. I suspect the qualification bar is (unofficially) set even higher now that he's under the jurisdiction of our super cash strapped CA school district.

The money for these services comes from federal dollars as part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, so whether or not your school system is cash strapped doesn't affect who is eligible for services, nor the money available for them. Each state can choose to administer the federal funds differently, which is why EI is free in some states but not in others, but the school system would not be using this money in other ways if they don't find kids eligible for services.

And if your child is truly delayed, and they are unofficially setting the qualification bar high so they don't have to provide services for them, they could be in serious trouble for violating federal law.

[osulori]

scribellesam, ditto holly116. Im an SLP in Ohio and the criteria we use to qualify kids is different than the schools-often kids don't qualify for services through the schools but still need therapy, we see a lot of kids in that situation.

[MamaMaui24]

In Texas, you have to have pretty severe delay/disability to qualify for the free school district speech services. You may have to go private. Check with your insurance. There's usually a cap (20 visits per year?) but coverage is actually decent for us.

[cep1976]

I just came from an IEP for my daughter, who is about to turn 3 and age out of EI. She was found eligible for pre-school services for speech articulation in part. She'll get two half days of preschool a week, with 45 minutes of speech therapy during that time. Her articulation goal for next year is written as "Given multi-sensory cues, (Name) will use spontaneous speech that is 75% intelligible."

Currently she tests as 80% intelligible at home, and 25-50% intelligible to others.

[jessnpaul]

May 27, 2015 7:47:24 GMT -5 @awinter said:

EI does stop at 3, at that point the school system picks up services. If his enunciation isn't where it should be today you can request an evaluation through the school system. He may receive services that way. And of course there is always private speech therapy that may or may not be covered by your insurance.

This is what we did. While B did not qualify for speech (he qualified for gross/fine motor skills), he's on the lower end of average for speech so they monitor him monthly to see if he'll need extra help. He goes to the special preschool Mon-Fri for 2.5 hours/day and it's been awesome for him! Even though he doesn't get extra help in speech, you can tell he's come a long way!

I understand most of what he says except when he starts talking really fast. But not sure if everyone else understands him as well as I do because I definitely have to translate sometimes!

[Deleted]

Thank you everyone for your replies! We just got back from the appointment. Our pediatrician said he needed to be at 75% understandability, but he's more like 40 to 50%. so he gave us a referral for an audiologist and a speech therapist. The audiologist is to get a hearing test to ensure the sounds DS hears aren't muffled, affecting his pronunciation. The pediatrician recommended a private speech therapist because he said it might be hard to get a hold of someone in the school district with school ending in a week and a half. Hopefully the private therapist takes our insurance, I'm going to call them shortly. Thank you all for your advice!

[Ashley&Scott]

Glad you got the referral. Checking his hearing is a great step. M's speech always improved after changes to his hearing. (getting tubes, removing the excess wax build up)

The speech therapist that does his initial screening will also be able to give you tips on how to help him at home. One thing that they told us at our evaluation was to do was model the correct pronunciation & repeat the words back emphasizing the syllable that was being skipped or mispronounced. So if he's saying "tookie" for cookie then you would repeat back "Oh you want a COOKie, that sounds yummy, I really like COOKies too. Here is your COOKie". If he was saying "uck" instead of truck then it would be like: "look Mommy uck." Oh yes I see that TRuck over there, what color is the TRuck? You're right it's a blue TRuck." (You get the idea, try to repeat the word back 2-3 times in different ways. Also don't tell him he's saying it wrong or withhold things until he says it correctly. You want it to be a positive experience.)

[cep1976]

May 27, 2015 13:18:32 GMT -5 @fivedogs said:

May 27, 2015 12:49:38 GMT -5 @supergreen said:

Thank you everyone for your replies! We just got back from the appointment. Our pediatrician said he needed to be at 75% understandability, but he's more like 40 to 50%. so he gave us a referral for an audiologist and a speech therapist. The audiologist is to get a hearing test to ensure the sounds DS hears aren't muffled, affecting his pronunciation. The pediatrician recommended a private speech therapist because he said it might be hard to get a hold of someone in the school district with school ending in a week and a half. Hopefully the private therapist takes our insurance, I'm going to call them shortly. Thank you all for your advice!

I am obviously not in your school district, but in all of the districts I know of, the offices that coordinate developmental screenings aren't on an academic calendar.  They are year round (they may have summer hours) - regardless, they are still in school now and it is a good time to get accurate information about screenings and services.  Given the financial aspect, I would call the school district now as well as contacting the private therapist.  

Yes. While many kids 3+ don't get services year round (in my state they do not unless needed to meet basic life skills), the offices that coordinate this and do testing and placement are open year round. For kids in EI, there are very specific rules about transitioning out into school based services and it must be done within a certain timeframe around their birthday, so these offices remain open year round to accommodate this.

[Deleted]

May 27, 2015 13:18:32 GMT -5 @fivedogs said:

May 27, 2015 12:49:38 GMT -5 @supergreen said:

Thank you everyone for your replies! We just got back from the appointment. Our pediatrician said he needed to be at 75% understandability, but he's more like 40 to 50%. so he gave us a referral for an audiologist and a speech therapist. The audiologist is to get a hearing test to ensure the sounds DS hears aren't muffled, affecting his pronunciation. The pediatrician recommended a private speech therapist because he said it might be hard to get a hold of someone in the school district with school ending in a week and a half. Hopefully the private therapist takes our insurance, I'm going to call them shortly. Thank you all for your advice!

I am obviously not in your school district, but in all of the districts I know of, the offices that coordinate developmental screenings aren't on an academic calendar.  They are year round (they may have summer hours) - regardless, they are still in school now and it is a good time to get accurate information about screenings and services.  Given the financial aspect, I would call the school district now as well as contacting the private therapist.  

Good idea thanks, I will do that!

[scribellesam]

May 27, 2015 10:52:38 GMT -5 cep1976 said:

May 27, 2015 9:52:46 GMT -5 scribellesam said:

Well now I'm going to worry about my 3yo all day. His own dad doesn't even understand him 75% of the time. We had him evaluated at 27mo and he had a mild delay but didn't qualify for services at the time. I suspect the qualification bar is (unofficially) set even higher now that he's under the jurisdiction of our super cash strapped CA school district.

The money for these services comes from federal dollars as part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, so whether or not your school system is cash strapped doesn't affect who is eligible for services, nor the money available for them. Each state can choose to administer the federal funds differently, which is why EI is free in some states but not in others, but the school system would not be using this money in other ways if they don't find kids eligible for services.

And if your child is truly delayed, and they are unofficially setting the qualification bar high so they don't have to provide services for them, they could be in serious trouble for violating federal law.

Thank you! I actually worked as a special education attorney for a few years before I had kids. I'm aware of DS1's rights, just a little cynical as to how those rights are sometimes handled by the school districts around here.

I suspect something like speech delay is easier to precisely evaluate than emotional disturbance, which is what I have more experience with. I'll speak with his pedi and preschool teacher to see if we should get him reevaluated this summer.

[cep1976]

May 27, 2015 14:24:48 GMT -5 scribellesam said:

May 27, 2015 10:52:38 GMT -5 cep1976 said:

The money for these services comes from federal dollars as part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, so whether or not your school system is cash strapped doesn't affect who is eligible for services, nor the money available for them. Each state can choose to administer the federal funds differently, which is why EI is free in some states but not in others, but the school system would not be using this money in other ways if they don't find kids eligible for services.

And if your child is truly delayed, and they are unofficially setting the qualification bar high so they don't have to provide services for them, they could be in serious trouble for violating federal law.

Thank you! I actually worked as a special education attorney for a few years before I had kids. I'm aware of DS1's rights, just a little cynical as to how those rights are sometimes handled by the school districts around here.

I suspect something like speech delay is easier to precisely evaluate than emotional disturbance, which is what I have more experience with. I'll speak with his pedi and preschool teacher to see if we should get him reevaluated this summer.

Oh, I'm sure this is the case. They used the Preschool Language Scales, Fifth Edition and Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation 2 for the most recent speech testing we went through. There's certainly not a lot of room to be subjective on the results. When you ask my kid to say "Banana" and she replies with "Aya" it's fairly clear her articulation is not good, lol.