When to decrease frequency of therapies?

st.augbride

We've been in PT since 4 months old and since 6 months privately twice per week. Ds is now a walker (woohoo!) so we dropped to one time per week, which I feel good about. My question is about speech therapy. At 14 months he didn't really have any words execpt mama and dada and maybe "me-me" which is his sound for our cats. We started speech then two times per week, and at the same time we started ABA two times per week (ds isn't ASD but benefits from the same therapies). Anyhow, now at 17 months he has about 40-50 words! Some are super clear, some aren't, some are sounds for things, but still we are blown away by his progress. We are needing to focus a bit more on some feeding therapy, and as I'm sure all of you know, time and scheduling is always an issue. My question is when would you think it would make sense to drop speech to once per week. He's made such progress that I don't even know if he'd be considered delayed at all with it, but at the same time we've worked hard to get here and I'm scared to  let go of any therapies and then see him lose momentum. How do you decide on this, or do you wait until the therapists bring it up? 

Assembly_Reqd

If your schedule, pocketbook and sanity can handle it I would continue. There is always speech stuff that can be worked on.

If this is through EI, I would wait until they bring it up. More than likely at his 6 month or 1 year review they will get an updated report from the SLP and you may lose it at that time anyway....

grbnik

Typically the therapist will let you know when the person plateaus, and that is typically when insurance stops coverage, so I say, stick with it until that point.  If they feel that he can benefit in more ways, use it.  It is harder to get back in to therapies, I have found, then to stay in them.

kcisthebombdotcom

grbnik:

Typically the therapist will let you know when the person plateaus, and that is typically when insurance stops coverage, so I say, stick with it until that point.  If they feel that he can benefit in more ways, use it.  It is harder to get back in to therapies, I have found, then to stay in them.

This x 100000000.

My son was doing really well so they cut his therapy back and I wish they didn't.

realisticdreams

Our ST asked us if we were comfortable we dropped to 1x month for a couple months and completely stopped 2 months ago.  They will normally bring it up.

st.augbride

Thanks. This is private and not EI (we aren't impressed with EI by us at all). Our ST mentioned going to 1 time per week when she's back from her 1.5 month vacation (nervous about so long without speech...). I love the thought of less therapy but am too nervous about losing momentum. With #2 on the way, I think we'll just max out what we can until then since it will be harder to do after that I'm sure.