Speech Evaluation - Clearwater,FL

He may not have qualified for Early Intervention (is that the same as Early Steps) when you had him tested but he may qualify when he is closer to age 2. The reason is that before about 20 months, most kids will have 5-10 words. So having only 3 is not bad. He is still young and most kids don't really benenefit from speech therapy until after 2 anyway. I would wait a bit and then at 2 if he has still not qualified, take him to a private therapist. Schools do not play a role in this until 3.

I would call a provider and ask them how much they charge for a cash patient. If it's been 6 months you can have him evaluated again. Unfortunately with all of the budget cuts, I believe that the criteria used to determine is services are needed has changed.

My son was evaluated by our school district and determined that he doesn't qualify. I have a friend that knows someone that works there and had her look over his test scores and was told that 3 years ago he would have qualified. I'm going to have him tested again.

With insurance, I have found that it depends on what diagnosis you attach. If you say it is an articulation disorder, no they will not pay. With my son, our speech therapist used receptive and expressive language disorder and they covered it. The speech therapist doesn't take insurance and charges $65 for half an hour. We filed our own claim with our insurance company. I would ask Early Steps to re-evaluate. Sometimes the squeeky wheel gets the oil. That being said, I don't find our early intervention program to be nearly enough to fix my son's speech issues.

I was in your shoes just a few months back. When my son was 22 months old he could say maybe 5 words clearly. We worked with him ALLLL the time. My husband and I were so worried that he had something wrong. We both work at schools, so we talked to the speech therapists at both of our campuses. They both pretty much said the same thing--wait. So we did, and I swear to you, the month he turned 2, a light bulb came on. He started talking so much--almost too much!!! He is now 29 months old, and talks nonstop!

So just be patient. From my personal experience, boys are STUBBORN! I would wait until after he has turned two at least to do any kind of testing. Good luck!!

Many speech therapy clinics offer free screenings one or more times a month. I had my daughter evaluated during a free screening and we now take her to the same clinic for 1 hr of therapy a week for lateral lisp. Please call clinics in your area and ask for a free evaluation.
If your son needs therapy, please ask clinic personnel about privately funded grants. We just received such a grant for $1000 for our daughter through United Healthcare Children's Foundation.

Is Early Steps like Early Intervention (state funded program for developmental disabilities)? My 2 year old has been receiving services for over a year because he too only spoke a few words. I find it hard to believe your son wouldn't qualify. It's so awesome with Early Intervention because it's free and they come to your house. Maybe you can get him re-evaluated if it's been a while. The speech therapist/pathologist that sees my son is awesome and now he is way ahead of kids his age.

My grandson is 16 months today and only says mama and dada. He understands what we say to him but doesn't really talk. He babbles constantly almost like a play by play of what he is doing.
Your son will learn language at his own pace. Some kids are just so intent on being mobile and don't care about talking. Make sure you talk to him a lot and encourage him to use his words. When you had him a cup of milk for example say MILK --try to get him to say words. Also reading to him will help him to learn to talk.
But just in case talk to his Ped next time he has an appointment.

Do you not have health insurance that would cover this, at least partly?

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I would contact your insurance provider. Sometimes they will cover a evaluation. My sons was covered by ours and they therapist said the evaluations can cost up to a thousand where we went. Good luck

If he is still not talking by 2 1/2 or sooner, have him re-evaluated. My son did not say anything anyone could understand at 2 1/2 and early steps did put him in a speech/language program all day...It was wonderful....If still does not qualify, he may qualify for other services when he turns 3..I know my daughter did, she didn't qualify for early steps either but gets 4 hours of speech class every week and to be honest, doesn't really need it...Be persistent but humble...Contact FDLRS Childfind for the speech evaluation...Early Steps can give you the info...Good luck!

Call your local public school district, they provide free speech evaluations (though I'm sure your son is too young for it now, they can at least tell you at what age he would qualify.)
I suppose you can spend the money on a private evaluation but honestly, why? He's only 20 months old. What does his pediatrician say?

My son was evaluated & had speech therapy when he turned 2. Here in IL, this was done by early intervention. Since this is a state program, we did not pay anything for the evaluation. The therapy itself, depends on your income levels. It is still not the full cost. It is very nominal. When my son turned 3, the school district took over.

I would have a private evaluation done as soon as he turns 2 years old. If he is ALREADY 24 months, the testing parameters are vastly different, and this is when they will have higher expectations. When your insurance company gets the coding from the results of this eval, they may just cover the evaluation and be willing to cover some private speech therapy as well.

You may also use this write-up to give to the school system in order to get services provided free to you. Sometimes a private evaluation will trump one done by the school system.

Part of the process of getting your child the best help for speech and language is to learn HOW to work the process. A private evaluation is gold, I will tell you. But don't get it done until he is already 24 months. It can take a while to set up an appointment with an excellent evaluator. I would talk to several you get referrals to. Talk on the phone with them and see what they say about your child's particular issue. And take my advice here - if they have too many students and don't have time to take on your child after the eval, keep looking. If you have a therapist who is on maternity leave and will "work you in" as long as it's not when she is nursing, keep looking too. The moment you hear that voice in your head that says "this woman is not interested in my son's problem and acts like she's doing you a FAVOR by spending a half hour with him", keep looking. You are NOT desperate - you are looking for someone who cares and wants to help children and has experience in evaluating. Not someone who rolls their eyes when another worried mother calls her on the phone looking for help.

Can you tell I've been there? Yes, you can. That's why I give you this advice. Because I listened to that little voice in my head and didn't settle for that attitude, I ended up with a wonderful speech pathologist who did a remarkable job with with my son.

You can too.

Dawn

Each state is different, but for most states, even if you choose to have a private speech evaluation and pay out of pocket, you will need a script (referral) from a physician (i.e. pediatrician) before a therapist can evaluate. I'm not sure about in the state of FL and exactly for speech, but most therapy services could range from $100-$400/hour out of pocket. Check with your insurance company first, because most likely the evaluation would be covered and services past then would be dependent on therapist recommendations.
Also, expressive language is different from receptive language. If your son understands you and can follow simple 1-2 step commands when asked, he may just be a late talker and nothing major to worry about. February wasn't that long ago and you may need to give him just a little bit longer to hear more clearly now that he has the tubes. Reading and baby sign language are both great ways to encourage and support child speech and language development. Good luck!!

I would wait a few months and call EI again. I think they are reluctant to start based on no words before the age of 2. However, if they see that he has not had a normal growth (i.e., more words at a consistant rate) then he will most likely qualify.

This is what happened with my daughter. at 18 months she was evaluated and barely 'passed'/within low normal. But by 2 she still had not gained any new words so she qualified.

Don't give up with EI....

Wanted to add, one of the tips the speech therapist told us to do is take pictures of things around YOUR house that you want him to know the workds for. Put them in a photo album. This helped tremendously for us...for it finally clicked with her and she started saying words that we needed for basic communication. Such as cup, food, blanket, bed, her brothers,....

You can have a free evaluation thru the school district. If that doesn't answer your questions then go for a private one.

There is a Federal law that requires all school districts to provide an evaluation for any thing that would indicate difficulty learning. It's for children from birth.

Make an appointment right away. There are two different programs. The one for babies provides more assistance. I'm not sure anymore but I think that 2 is the cut off age for the first more thorough treatment program.

Call your school district's administrative office to get the number for the program.

If Early Steps is the school district program, I'd ask for another evaluation since time has passed and he's still not talking.

Ask your pediatrician for a referral.

I do not know where you live but tell your peds doctor and ask for a referral to a program to be evaluated, we live in pinellas and my son was evaluated by all childrens for both speech and occupational therapy and at age of 2 1/2 and recieved some services there and at 3 began what is called Part C, prior to age 3 I do not know that there is anything they will do this early on but it is worth a try. I know a speech therpist who does home visits, my daughter still recieves speech in home depending on where you live I can give you her information if you'd like

I believe the speech evaluation I had done for my son cost around $250. It was not covered by insurance. I did luck out and my insurance covered some of the speech therapy appointments but they were out of network. But something was better than nothing.

My son did not qualify through early start and the private speech evaluation indicated he was borderline. He might have gotten better on his own, he might not have. We could have chosen to wait and see, but I didn't want to do that because I was seeing signs of frustration. My son was closer to 2.5 years old though. He was saying a number of words but about 1/3 or so what his twin brother could say.

He benefited greatly from speech and we only had to take him for about 6 months to get him back on track and going on his own. It was a hassle because the location wasn't convenient, but is was well worth it. I'm also glad I didn't wait any longer.

I don't think my kids spoke much at 20 months. If your son's receptive skills are really good, then it could be that he is just a late talker. It might also explain why he didn't qualify for services through Early Start.

But, if you aren't comfortable with the situation and want to get him checked out and you can afford it, then I say do it. The worst thing that could happen is that you spend the $ and the evaluation says he is fine. That would at least give you piece of mind. And if the evaluation says he is okay, you can still ask the therapist for suggestions that you can do at home to encourage him to talk more.

One thing we worked on at home was always describing what we were doing, no matter how simple it seemed. "I'm going to the refrigerator to get you some milk. Now I'm pouring the milk into your cup. I'm done now. Here is your cup of milk."

Another thing was to interactively describe what he is doing and build on it. Let's say, he can say "ball". When he says ball, you can say "Ball. Blue ball." And if he isn't saying ball, when he is playing with a ball, you can still say it. Repetition helps.

Good luck!

I agree with the others that the school district does provide this service free of charge. However, he is still very young! He does have some words, which is good. My younger daughter had some major speech impediments at that age. Nobody could understand anything she said except mama, dada, and kiki (what she called her sister). The rest of it sounded like babbling to us. A friend of mine who is a speech therapist said that as long as we could tell that she could hear us, and could understand what we were saying, not to worry about it yet. We worked with her as much as we could (as much as she would allow us to) and just talked to her using normal, big words, and she did eventually learn to talk. So well, in fact, that she absolutely will not shut up now (she's 6). I have several friends with similar experiences as well. I think it's pretty common.

So... I know it is hard not to worry, but if the district says he's too young, and/or that his current speech development falls within the normal range, I wouldn't freak out too much about it. Maybe give him a couple of months and see if he doesn't pick up some more words in that time.

We had my daughter evaluated by a private speech therapist when she was 5 for stuttering. Insurance did not cover it and Early steps did not cover her either, so we were stuck. The evaluation cost us $160 but she did not need any therapy but it was well worth it. The eval took about an hour and they did all sorts of things with her and I was present as well.

There are several places who will work on a sliding scale though. You may want to check out any colleges nearby that offer speech therapy courses, to see if they have any type of program for their students and go that way.