Speech Delayed - Nashville,TN

Do you live near a college? Many universities have speech pathologist programs and they need children to work with. I felt that the one near us was the best speech therapy he received because the students were being videotaped working with my child and were consistently being critique.

Good luck. At three, he should fall under the school district but keep going back to early intervention because he will soon qualify if his gap between what his peers are doing and what he is doing widens.

He is elegible for ECI, which is a state run federaly funded program for children under 3. Find out what your state calls it, and get an evaluation from them as soon as you can, you should not count on this to be all he needs, so try to find a way to suplement his public speech with private services. It is expensive, but very worth it. Try to find a family with another 4 year old, and co-op baby sitting, so that your daughter is out of the mix when you work with your son.

A month prior to his third birthday, write a letter to your school district, look up the special education directors name, and get the address off the schools web site, and request an evaluation because you suspect that your son has a disablity. Tell them to send you a copy of your rights under IDEA, and that you expect to hear from them and schedule a meeting for you to grant your consent for evaluation within ten school days of the receipt of the letter. He should qualify for speech service through the school district. He may not qualify for anything else, if it is just a speech delay.

You can also appeal an insurance denial. It is worth a try.

Log on to www.wrightslaw.com and start reading about advocacy, so that you know how to navigate the system. Look at his evaluation data, learn what it means. Read the article "Understanding Tests and Measurements for Parents and Advocates" and make sure that you are only dealing with a speech delay. If it is more, you may find that a Developmental Pediatrician will be helpful.

Read about the kind of delay your son has, read about preschool issues on wrightslaw, and check out the yellow pages on the wrightslaw site for your state to see if there are any providers who may be able to help you.
M.

Most counties have some sort of early intervention program that is free. You have to get an evaluation, then a speech therapist would come to your house. I would guess that this therapist would be skilled in redirecting over-helpful siblings.
GOOD LUCK!

Did the speech pathologist or your pediatrician express real concern or did they just think he was a late talker? I'll tell you why I ask, when my son turned 2 he was hardly saying anything, however he was a very good non-verbal communicator and knew everything he was supposed to know and more. The pediatrician wasn't concerned at all, but said if I was worried to get him evaluated although she said most likely he would qualify for services. She just felt he would be a late talker (I was as well, didn't say a word for almost 2 1/2 years and then just started talking in sentences). However, I got him tested, he qualified but lucklily early intervention is free in the county where I live so there was nothing to lose. Anyway, within 6 months he was talking up a storm and by his next evaluation he was beyond where he should've been for his age. So even though I think that the early intervention may have helped a little, I think the pediatrician was right and he was just a late talker. He's 4 now and NEVER stops talking. :) I understand the concern, but it is possible that he's just going to be a late talker. My son was just taking it all in. The ped. also told me that the most important thing was how much he knew, not said. So, if your son knows alot, that seems to be more important then him talking. Hope that helps, but I do understand how worried a Mom can be until you know it's ok. Just wanted to share my experience.

Check with your school district. Many times they are able to help and direct you with early intervention.

It's possible that he's just a late talker, but it's also possible that he needs more help. If you can help him now, it helps to reduce the risk that he will get farther behind or have trouble in school. Knowing the specifc problem is also valuable - if he had apraxia, for example, then specific help would be needed and he wouldn't just catch up. I don't want to worry you, because kids can do very well and catch up, but it some kids really need the help from therapy. You may find out that your child doesn't (maybe he will do really well if you work with him at home), but it would be a shame to miss getting the earliest possible help if he needs more than that.

You can generally get free therapy (or at least lower cost therapy) through Early Intervention. There are different names in different states. The Department of Human Services should be able to help, or you can call your school district (they provide services and evaluation for children over age 3). It's really worth looking into it because they may be able to help a great deal and even send a therapist to your house if that's easiest (my son had a wonderful speech therapist and developmental therapist all for free through EI and is now above age level in language skills - and it was all free).

If you did get an evaluation by the county (Early Intervention) and they said his delays weren't severe enough to qualify for services, then I'd suggest talking with the speech therapist who did the evaluation to find out exactly what would help your child the most. They may be able to give suggestions. If they aren't helpful, then maybe you could find another therapist who understands that therapy is too expensive and who will let you make occasional appointments to check your son's progress and get "homework" targeted to his needs without having to have weekly therapy.

As soon as he turns 3, he will be eligible for Early Childhood Services instead of EI. They have different eligibility requirements. You can ask for additional services. If your private speech therapy evaluation showed more severe delays than the EI evaluation did, then you can also take that back to EI and ask for help. See if they will accept a private evaluation to qualify your son for services.

Also call local universities. They may have reduced cost therapy through programs in which students are trained to become speech therapists. You may be able to pay a speech therapy student to work with your son occasionally as a less expensive option even if you don't sign up for regular therapy through the university. You might even be able to get free therapy if you sign up for a research study.

You can also get some good books to use at home. James MacDonald's Play to Talk is very helpful and the Hanen Program has a book called It Takes Two to Talk that is supposed to be great. There are a lot of things you can do at home to encourage language, but there are different things to emphasize depending on what is causing the problem. Even a single visit to a speech therapist might help you decide on the best approach to help at home. The therapy is play based, so your daughter can enjoy participating or helping out.

Yes, some kids do just catch up. I have family members who were late talkers and who were fine. However, I also know people who have children who needed a lot of help and who wish the problem had been caught earlier.

ok my suggestions are this. have you sat througha speech therapy session? mimic what they do. make him look at you and emphasise the beginning of chair for example. say to him ch air. do this with all words. make you daughter sit and watch so she can do it to. if she cant stay out of it put her in a corner. she will figure it out. what about sunday school and wednesday church for interaction. as far as activities what about play dates. find a friend or daddy or whatever that can makeyour 4 yr old dissapear while you do this. say she goes to a friends house or daddy takes her to the park while you do this. use your imagination. find ways to make her "dissapear" conviently while doing this.

try to arrange for play dates for your daughter where a few times a week she is at a friend's house and a few times a week she has a friend over. This will be great for her and really prepare her for kindergarten. even when the play date is at your house she should be busy with her friend and you could work with your son for a while. Did they give you suggestions for working with him at home? Does your local library have story time and sing alongs? two videos I like for my son at that age are Baby Babble and Winnie the Pooh's Words. Good luck and continue to try to seek services
I don't know why Early intervention wont work with him. Does your public school have a preschool program?

I would think that if your son is evaluated by a speech therapist and is diagnosed with something like apraxia or oral motor planning issues, which is the case for many speech delayed kids, then there is a medical need for your son receiving speech therapy and your insurance should cover it. I would really push for it. After all, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Working with your son at home would also be good for all of you. My son is speech delayed also and I have a daughter who is 14 months younger than him, and we had the same problem with her wanting all of the attention and talk, talk, talking, and him needing the attention and more than willing to allow his sister to talk for him. What I found helpful was: (1) Dividing your time so that each child has a chance to receive your undivided attention for just a short while (e.g., 15 minutes for him and then 15 minutes for her); (2) Including her in on your therapy sessions by giving her specific tasks to do; (3) Reward her for her being a good help by giving her a lot of praise and maybe something small like a stick of gum or a sticker; and (4) Realize that no matter how forceful she is in being front and center during your therapy sessions with your son, she is a good role model for him. But I do agree that it is very hard to do in-home therapy sessions in this type of situation. Just do the best that you can and I'm sure that your son will benefit greatly from your patience and endurance.

Hope this helps. Best of luck.

I think this age group is entitled to free evals and help. Maybe someone locally, at your schoolboard can point you in the right direction. Good luck.

My youngest daughter didn't qualify either for state funded - she wasn't delayed enough. Our insurance at the time did cover it so she went to private and maybe it helped but in hindsight, it was a waste of time and everyone's money. They're still so young. If professionals don't think he has any conditions or syndrome's, I wouldn't worry for another 6 months or so. My daughter went for awhile and then started to hate it so we stopped. Then she started again around 4.5 and just loves her teacher and it's been much more worthwhile. She talks plenty now but just is hard to understand in certain words. My older daughter is like yours btw. I really wouldn't worry unti he's AT LEAST 3. My brother-in-law is amongst the absolute smartest people I've ever met and he spoke very late. Back then they just didn't worry about it.

my son had the same problem. until he was about 2 he didnt say much(mama, dada such as that). speech therapist wanted to take him to a special office in Nashville to run a bunch of tests. My DH didnt want him to become some science experiment or to be classified as a "special needs child" so i started scheduling a bunch of playdates with kids my oldest son's age (he's 4 like your daughter) and they have been playing with other kids at least 3 times a week and my son is now almost 3 and you wouldnt believe the difference. i am a stay at home mom also. and cant afford costly "treatments". but letting him play with 2 or 3 "older" kids has helped him so much and brought him and his brother so much closer. they dont fight as much and are "best buddies" as they put it. hope it helps. by the way Einstein didnt talk until he was 4. your son will talk when he is ready.
good luck and god bless
B.

My experience with my son was exactly the same as Momof2's. He understood everything we said and I could understand a lit of what he wanted even though at two and a half he actually only spoke about 4 words. Our pediatrician wasn't concerned but said he probably would qualify for free speech therapy from the state (Ca) and it couldn't hurt. Because we are also a one income family I took advantage of it and he had bypassed all categories for his age group 6 months later. It just took someone who wasn't "mom" forcing him to speak. If your son appears to understand everything and can get by communicating without speech to you, I wouldn't spend the money yet on speech therapy if you can't qualify for free sessions. Perhaps a friend or family member could spend some time each week with him playing games in which he doesn't get his playing piece, the ball, a puzzle piece, whatever, until he says a word. That's what the speech therapist did and he said "ball" in the first hour. If it's not you that's with him perhaps he'll try harder to make himself understood.

I am not sure where you live, but if you are in the Chattanooga, TN area, you might want to check into Siskin Children's Institute. My son currently attends there 3 days a week and it is less than $400 a month. They work with both typically and atypically developing children so they have experience with children with speech delays.
S.