intro and question

EandIMommy86 · December 2013

Hi everybody,

I am not sure what board to ask this on, so I figured this would be the closest. I have a DD who is 16 months old and she was evaluated a few weeks back for speech therapy. She was eligible and they said she should be saying 10 to 15 words by now but she's only saying about 4. Today was the first time the speech therapist came and I have a few questions for those with LOs in speech therapy or have done it in the past.

1) I was under the impression that they had a more rigorous method. She just played with her the whole time singing songs, making animal sounds, etc. Is this what usually happens? It seems like I can just do that stuff myself with LO.

2) how long did it take before you noticed LO had a better vocabulary?

3) were they seeing the speech therapist once their vocabulary was up to speed? Were you able to help them progress when the therapist was not there.

Any information would help. Sorry if this has already been asked.

mommy0411 · December 2013

My DS1 started speech therapy at 19 months. Progress initially was very slow. He had no words when we started and only had 5, 6 months later. However, he was also diagnosed with autism and we learned he just needed significantly more therapy per week then EI could provide so he has been in a program where he gets 10 hours of speech a week. Now a year into therapy he is talking but has a very long way to go before he would be considered caught up. Progress really depends on the child and if there are other issues preventing speech from developing. At this age children learn primarily through play so therapy at this age is generally play based. What you saw has also been my experience with my sons therapy. I try to watch the therapist very closely and do the same thing she does when I interact and play with my son. We have seen the most progress when we are consistent with using the same prompting as the SLP. Also I ask every question I can think of to the therapists

Welcome to the board! It is a wonderful resource and lots of us have kids in speech therapy!

EandIMommy86 · December 2013

Thanks for the info. I asked her several questions. She pretty much said LO was very social and has a very good attention span. She mimicked a lot of what the woman did as well. I did ask about autism and they said she is nowhere near that even being a possibility. I guess I expected there to be something different helping them to say words. She was a late walker so I wonder if she will be a late talker as well.

EandIMommy86 · December 2013

Thanks @-auntie-. This helps a lot as well. She said she will be here 3 times a month so I will see how things are going. I apologize as I am not familiar with all the abbreviations, so I am not sure entirely what you said in the paragraph. I assume it had something to do with my autism comment.

EandIMommy86 · December 2013

Yes. She is a slp. Thanks. Also, when do they have the M-CHAT screening? This is all new to me so sorry for all of the questions.

kcisthebombdotcom · December 2013

Welcome! I've had two kids in speech so I will share my experiences with both.

#1 -speech is very play based. It's impossible to get a child that young to sit for speech drills. They incorporate speech into their activities and will give you ideas on ways to play that will encourage language. Ei is essentially teaching the parent how to be a therapist.

It took 8 months before ds had the language explosion. He literally woke up one day and started speaking in 5-6 word sentences with proper pronoun and verb usage. I actually had called my ei service coordinator the week prior to complain that he wasn't improving. At 32 months he tested at or ahead of age level in all areas of development but still receives speech due to what was once an articulation delay. He tested this year as typical but it seems they want to keep him through the school year. Dd has been much slower progress in terms of language but she's also competed with lots of medical issues (seizures, multiple failed hearing tests, sleep apnea, surgery). After a year and a half of ei she scores in the typical range across the board outside of language and social skills . She is talking now but is about ten months delayed which is where she was roughly a year ago so making progress and talking but still very delayed.

Ds has still progressed normally in the absence of speech therapy all summer long. We have not reached that point with dd yet.

MirandaHobbes · December 2013

Our speech was play-based as well. He started signing and using PECs cards right away (picture exchange cards). I felt like his speech took off pretty quickly; he started at 20 months and by 2.5 he was speaking in short sentences. He has ASD though and was receiving a lot of other therapies as well.

ShieldMaiden · December 2013

My DD has been in speech since 22 months when she had 3 words. She is almost 2.5 now and has about 30 words, but she only began to add words in the last month. She does have a mild autism diagnosis, so she receives about 15 hours of services in addition to her hour of speech per week.

Her speech therapy is play-based, and her SLP also uses touch cues when working with her. Not sure if that's common at this early stage or if it's because the SLP suspects dyspraxia could be the cause for DD's delay.

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