Anyone have an opinion on speech therapy?

chelseymat · December 2014

So DS2 had a private speech eval yesterday indicating he needs some therapy. They recommended weekly for 6 months then reevaluate. They have been telling us all along (we had to wait 3 months for the eval apt) that our insurance covered speech therapy. Come to find out, they do not cover it…..Of course I find this out after open enrollment is over. So, I can pay for private speech therapy at $45 a week (which I know isn't a ton of money but some) or I can go through the school district since he is 3 now. I have to wait another month now to get him into another eval through the district (I would have started this earlier had I know my insurance didn't pay but thats another issue). Then I might have to wait another 30-90 days for the therapy to start. So, if you know anything about speech therapy…..would you a. just pay out of pocket and get him started, b. wait and go through the school district, or c. start in private therapy now and move him when they have room in the school district. To give you an idea of how bad his speech is, an average adult that doesn't know him can understand him about 50% of the time when according to the speech therapist it should be between 90 and 100% of the time. Thanks for any help…..

savvychas · December 2014

I had to do speech therapy till I was in the 6th grade. I did not start it till I started school. Now I do t have the problem. The local schools should have it. But my parents were not worried about getting the help till I got in school. My opinion he is 3 so what if everyone can't completely understand him, if all the dr says is he needs speech wait till he is in school and read to him it helped me. Hope this helps

chelseymat · December 2014

Maybe I wasn't clear. The school district has to provide speech therapy for kids 3 and up. He could start in 3 or so months. I don't need to wait until kindergarden. It is part of the head start program. My question is would you wait for them or just start now and pay?

Keeptruckin · December 2014

I would wait until he starts through the head start program at 3. That will give him lots of time to catch up by kindergarten. But you can research and start helping him now too. What are his issues, annunciation articulation? If he can start in the next 3 months through school, just wait but if it's longer I would start some private speech maybe.

PrimRoseMama · December 2014

I'd do private until a spot opened up. DD has been in private since 16 months & I'm currently waiting to get her into our school district's program. She's 3.

PrimRoseMama · December 2014

chelseymat said:
Maybe I wasn't clear. The school district has to provide speech therapy for kids 3 and up. He could start in 3 or so months. I don't need to wait until kindergarden. It is part of the head start program. My question is would you wait for them or just start now and pay?

IMHO, start now & pay.

chickaboo1974 · December 2014

Well one of my sons started speech at 2 with EI and then at 3 he moved on to the schools program (which is a 5 day a week 2.5 hr preschool program) This program includes tuition students also (which my other son is one). Nick has a speech therapist that meets with him in the classroom and one on one for a total of 60 minutes a week. The other time he is in the classroom, staffed by a special ed teacher and 2 aides - with 14 students. They work on the stuff any preschool classroom works on.

I noticed a HUGE improvement after the first year with EI- he was talking more. But the biggest difference was the first year in the district's program. He was socializing and starting conversations with his peers and they understood him.

I say start now, and then move onto the school's program when the eval is done.

SouthernAcorn · December 2014

C started private speech through her preschool a little after she turned 4. Her primary doctor said that she didn't see any reason why we couldn't wait until she was in kindergarten to do it through the public school system aka for free. But we were noticing that she was becoming more withdrawn and frustrated because her teachers and friends had such a hard time understanding her. We decided to pay out of pocket, about what OP is expecting to pay, and it was one of the best choices we've ever made for her. After only a few months, we noticed significant progress in her communication skills. She was more outgoing and her participation during group times also increased. She still has some pronunciation difficulties and is being evaluated by her public school's speech therapist. We are hoping to create an IEP for her and start more therapy in January. It sucked paying out of pocket, but I firmly believe that she would not be the funny and outgoing girl we have today if we hadn't started treatment when we did.

chelseymat · December 2014

Thanks for all your advice. I guess we'll start him now and see how it goes. This whole process has been so frustrating with the waiting. Why it takes 3-4 months to get an apt for anything baffles me. Anyway……He has an articulation issue so hopefully getting him started now will help.

wife07mom09 · December 2014

Unless articulation difficulty is severe it is unlikely the school would qualify him. They base need on if it affects educational need.
However at $45 a speech session that's pretty inexpensive. Most places here are $100 an hour so I'd take the discount if that's the cash pay rate.

Meery82 · December 2014

bostonkisses said:

PrimRoseMama said:

Maybe I wasn't clear. The school district has to provide speech therapy for kids 3 and up. He could start in 3 or so months. I don't need to wait until kindergarden. It is part of the head start program. My question is would you wait for them or just start now and pay?
IMHO, start now & pay.

Agree. Since you're already able to start intervening and addressing the delays, start with private therapy. But I'd also get the school eval process started since that does take a while to go through. Once everything is set, you can drop private therapy and just do the school therapy, or you can do a combo of scool and private depending on the issues and delays.

Agreed.

Ilumine · December 2014

I would start now and move him over.

For what it's worth and all anecdotal, I have noticed that a lot of childhood behavioral issues come with communication issues. I would pay to ensure that we started everything as early as possible.

PrimRoseMama · December 2014

Ilumine said:
I would start now and move him over.

For what it's worth and all anecdotal, I have noticed that a lot of childhood behavioral issues come with communication issues. I would pay to ensure that we started everything as early as possible.

Agree 1000%. DD used to have the most emotionally taxing tantrums complete with hurting herself because she could not communicate her needs. Once we got therapy & other methods (ASL & picture pointing) involved it helped immensely. We now have a word explosion & sentences at 3.

Hang in there!

Knottie48097161 · December 2014

Start private now. There is a very good chance the school won't qualify your child. There has to be an educational need which is hard to prove at 3.

Knottie48097161 · December 2014

savvychas said:
I had to do speech therapy till I was in the 6th grade. I did not start it till I started school. Now I do t have the problem. The local schools should have it. But my parents were not worried about getting the help till I got in school. My opinion he is 3 so what if everyone can't completely understand him, if all the dr says is he needs speech wait till he is in school and read to him it helped me. Hope this helps

Worst advice ever!

LoveBeingMama · December 2014

Knottie48097161 said:
Start private now. There is a very good chance the school won't qualify your child. There has to be an educational need which is hard to prove at 3.

But at 3, the "educational need" may be that he can't be understood by teachers and peers. Both of my boys qualified for the school program at 3 for articulation problems only. I wouldn't rule the school program out before getting evaluated by them.

Have you asked the school district if they will take the outside evaluation? My younger son is transitioning to the school program from a private therapist through EI, and the school is using her evaluation. Also, assuming it's like the state I live in, he would have an IEP through the school, and there are specific guidelines about how quickly services have to begin if he does in fact qualify. I would call the school this week and talk to them - the process may be much quicker than you expect.

chelseymat · December 2014

LoveBeingMama said:

Start private now. There is a very good chance the school won't qualify your child. There has to be an educational need which is hard to prove at 3.
But at 3, the "educational need" may be that he can't be understood by teachers and peers. Both of my boys qualified for the school program at 3 for articulation problems only. I wouldn't rule the school program out before getting evaluated by them. Have you asked the school district if they will take the outside evaluation? My younger son is transitioning to the school program from a private therapist through EI, and the school is using her evaluation. Also, assuming it's like the state I live in, he would have an IEP through the school, and there are specific guidelines about how quickly services have to begin if he does in fact qualify. I would call the school this week and talk to them - the process may be much quicker than you expect.

Yeah I did talk to them about the time frame. He was referred in Sept by his pedi. It took us 3 months for the private eval and I didn't know I needed to call the school because they kept telling us our insurance paid for 60 visits. He had to wait until dec. to get a private apt for an eval. Once he got his private eval they told us we were not covered. I call and spoke with the school district and he has an apt in one month for a new eval. They cannot use his old one. It can take between 30 and 90 days from the date of the eval to get him into speech with the school. So if I go with only the school district it means minimum he won't get any therapy until like 5 months after the original referral. Almost 9 months on the long end. Part of this is my fault I should have scheduled simultaneous evals but I didn't know the school district was even an option when we were first referred.

Knottie48097161 · December 2014

LoveBeingMama said:

Start private now. There is a very good chance the school won't qualify your child. There has to be an educational need which is hard to prove at 3.
But at 3, the "educational need" may be that he can't be understood by teachers and peers. Both of my boys qualified for the school program at 3 for articulation problems only. I wouldn't rule the school program out before getting evaluated by them. Have you asked the school district if they will take the outside evaluation? My younger son is transitioning to the school program from a private therapist through EI, and the school is using her evaluation. Also, assuming it's like the state I live in, he would have an IEP through the school, and there are specific guidelines about how quickly services have to begin if he does in fact qualify. I would call the school this week and talk to them - the process may be much quicker than you expect.

articulation issues have to be pretty severe at three for a child to qualify. It's good your kids did but a lot don't.

LoveBeingMama · December 2014

Knottie48097161 said:

LoveBeingMama said:

Knottie48097161 said:
Start private now. There is a very good chance the school won't qualify your child. There has to be an educational need which is hard to prove at 3.
But at 3, the "educational need" may be that he can't be understood by teachers and peers. Both of my boys qualified for the school program at 3 for articulation problems only. I wouldn't rule the school program out before getting evaluated by them.

Have you asked the school district if they will take the outside evaluation? My younger son is transitioning to the school program from a private therapist through EI, and the school is using her evaluation. Also, assuming it's like the state I live in, he would have an IEP through the school, and there are specific guidelines about how quickly services have to begin if he does in fact qualify. I would call the school this week and talk to them - the process may be much quicker than you expect.

articulation issues have to be pretty severe at three for a child to qualify. It's good your kids did but a lot don't.

Of course, but OP already stated that with his articulation issues, a private therapist said he can be understood about 50% of the time when it should be closer to 90% of the time. That's a pretty big deficit, with documentation, as opposed to the posts on here with parents just guessing that their kid is behind because he only says X number of words or something. I wasn't saying it's easy to get qualified by the school; I just used the fact that it seems like a possibly severe deficit has already been identified, and further discussion with the school might not be a bad idea.

I'm all for speech therapy as soon as you can get it. If it's going to be months, I'd start with private. I'd also start the process with the school program in case private becomes too cost-prohibitive.

Knottie48097161 · December 2014

LoveBeingMama said:

Knottie48097161 said:

LoveBeingMama said:

Knottie48097161 said:
Start private now. There is a very good chance the school won't qualify your child. There has to be an educational need which is hard to prove at 3.
But at 3, the "educational need" may be that he can't be understood by teachers and peers. Both of my boys qualified for the school program at 3 for articulation problems only. I wouldn't rule the school program out before getting evaluated by them.

Have you asked the school district if they will take the outside evaluation? My younger son is transitioning to the school program from a private therapist through EI, and the school is using her evaluation. Also, assuming it's like the state I live in, he would have an IEP through the school, and there are specific guidelines about how quickly services have to begin if he does in fact qualify. I would call the school this week and talk to them - the process may be much quicker than you expect.

articulation issues have to be pretty severe at three for a child to qualify. It's good your kids did but a lot don't.

Of course, but OP already stated that with his articulation issues, a private therapist said he can be understood about 50% of the time when it should be closer to 90% of the time. That's a pretty big deficit, with documentation, as opposed to the posts on here with parents just guessing that their kid is behind because he only says X number of words or something. I wasn't saying it's easy to get qualified by the school; I just used the fact that it seems like a possibly severe deficit has already been identified, and further discussion with the school might not be a bad idea.

I'm all for speech therapy as soon as you can get it. If it's going to be months, I'd start with private. I'd also start the process with the school program in case private becomes too cost-prohibitive.

Actually no it's not that big of a deficit.

LoveBeingMama · December 2014

Knottie48097161 said:

LoveBeingMama said:

Knottie48097161 said:

LoveBeingMama said:

Knottie48097161 said:
Start private now. There is a very good chance the school won't qualify your child. There has to be an educational need which is hard to prove at 3.
But at 3, the "educational need" may be that he can't be understood by teachers and peers. Both of my boys qualified for the school program at 3 for articulation problems only. I wouldn't rule the school program out before getting evaluated by them.

Have you asked the school district if they will take the outside evaluation? My younger son is transitioning to the school program from a private therapist through EI, and the school is using her evaluation. Also, assuming it's like the state I live in, he would have an IEP through the school, and there are specific guidelines about how quickly services have to begin if he does in fact qualify. I would call the school this week and talk to them - the process may be much quicker than you expect.

articulation issues have to be pretty severe at three for a child to qualify. It's good your kids did but a lot don't.
Of course, but OP already stated that with his articulation issues, a private therapist said he can be understood about 50% of the time when it should be closer to 90% of the time. That's a pretty big deficit, with documentation, as opposed to the posts on here with parents just guessing that their kid is behind because he only says X number of words or something. I wasn't saying it's easy to get qualified by the school; I just used the fact that it seems like a possibly severe deficit has already been identified, and further discussion with the school might not be a bad idea.

I'm all for speech therapy as soon as you can get it. If it's going to be months, I'd start with private. I'd also start the process with the school program in case private becomes too cost-prohibitive.

Actually no it's not that big of a deficit.

Knottie48097161 said:

LoveBeingMama said:

Knottie48097161 said:

LoveBeingMama said:

Knottie48097161 said:
Start private now. There is a very good chance the school won't qualify your child. There has to be an educational need which is hard to prove at 3.
But at 3, the "educational need" may be that he can't be understood by teachers and peers. Both of my boys qualified for the school program at 3 for articulation problems only. I wouldn't rule the school program out before getting evaluated by them.

Have you asked the school district if they will take the outside evaluation? My younger son is transitioning to the school program from a private therapist through EI, and the school is using her evaluation. Also, assuming it's like the state I live in, he would have an IEP through the school, and there are specific guidelines about how quickly services have to begin if he does in fact qualify. I would call the school this week and talk to them - the process may be much quicker than you expect.

articulation issues have to be pretty severe at three for a child to qualify. It's good your kids did but a lot don't.
Of course, but OP already stated that with his articulation issues, a private therapist said he can be understood about 50% of the time when it should be closer to 90% of the time. That's a pretty big deficit, with documentation, as opposed to the posts on here with parents just guessing that their kid is behind because he only says X number of words or something. I wasn't saying it's easy to get qualified by the school; I just used the fact that it seems like a possibly severe deficit has already been identified, and further discussion with the school might not be a bad idea.

I'm all for speech therapy as soon as you can get it. If it's going to be months, I'd start with private. I'd also start the process with the school program in case private becomes too cost-prohibitive.

Actually no it's not that big of a deficit.

Thank you for the clarification. I was unaware of your degrees in speech and language pathology.

LoveBeingMama · December 2014

OP, I wish you luck in whichever route you choose. I know how hard it is to have children with speech issues. I hope, as previous posters have pointed out, that his deficit is minor and he shows improvement quickly!

PrimRoseMama · December 2014

savvychas said:
I had to do speech therapy till I was in the 6th grade. I did not start it till I started school. Now I do t have the problem. The local schools should have it. But my parents were not worried about getting the help till I got in school. My opinion he is 3 so what if everyone can't completely understand him, if all the dr says is he needs speech wait till he is in school and read to him it helped me. Hope this helps

I really think this is bad advice. If her child has needs it's more than just "so what". Starting early can alleviate a ton of stress for everyone. @savvychas‌ -- waiting until school can really create more stress.

All the reading in the world can't solve every speech/language issue.

Love My Lil Princess 509 · December 2014

I would start her in private and then do a combo of both, depending on if you she is getting anything from the speech from the school system.

See my recent post on my experience with speech through the school system. As of now, I find it a complete waste of time. Would LOVE to get DD in private, but we can't afford it.

Knottie48097161 · December 2014

LoveBeingMama said:

Knottie48097161 said:

LoveBeingMama said:

Knottie48097161 said:

LoveBeingMama said:

Knottie48097161 said:
Start private now. There is a very good chance the school won't qualify your child. There has to be an educational need which is hard to prove at 3.
But at 3, the "educational need" may be that he can't be understood by teachers and peers. Both of my boys qualified for the school program at 3 for articulation problems only. I wouldn't rule the school program out before getting evaluated by them.

Have you asked the school district if they will take the outside evaluation? My younger son is transitioning to the school program from a private therapist through EI, and the school is using her evaluation. Also, assuming it's like the state I live in, he would have an IEP through the school, and there are specific guidelines about how quickly services have to begin if he does in fact qualify. I would call the school this week and talk to them - the process may be much quicker than you expect.

articulation issues have to be pretty severe at three for a child to qualify. It's good your kids did but a lot don't.
Of course, but OP already stated that with his articulation issues, a private therapist said he can be understood about 50% of the time when it should be closer to 90% of the time. That's a pretty big deficit, with documentation, as opposed to the posts on here with parents just guessing that their kid is behind because he only says X number of words or something. I wasn't saying it's easy to get qualified by the school; I just used the fact that it seems like a possibly severe deficit has already been identified, and further discussion with the school might not be a bad idea.

I'm all for speech therapy as soon as you can get it. If it's going to be months, I'd start with private. I'd also start the process with the school program in case private becomes too cost-prohibitive.
Actually no it's not that big of a deficit.

Knottie48097161 said:

LoveBeingMama said:

Knottie48097161 said:

LoveBeingMama said:

Knottie48097161 said:
Start private now. There is a very good chance the school won't qualify your child. There has to be an educational need which is hard to prove at 3.
But at 3, the "educational need" may be that he can't be understood by teachers and peers. Both of my boys qualified for the school program at 3 for articulation problems only. I wouldn't rule the school program out before getting evaluated by them.

Have you asked the school district if they will take the outside evaluation? My younger son is transitioning to the school program from a private therapist through EI, and the school is using her evaluation. Also, assuming it's like the state I live in, he would have an IEP through the school, and there are specific guidelines about how quickly services have to begin if he does in fact qualify. I would call the school this week and talk to them - the process may be much quicker than you expect.

articulation issues have to be pretty severe at three for a child to qualify. It's good your kids did but a lot don't.
Of course, but OP already stated that with his articulation issues, a private therapist said he can be understood about 50% of the time when it should be closer to 90% of the time. That's a pretty big deficit, with documentation, as opposed to the posts on here with parents just guessing that their kid is behind because he only says X number of words or something. I wasn't saying it's easy to get qualified by the school; I just used the fact that it seems like a possibly severe deficit has already been identified, and further discussion with the school might not be a bad idea.

I'm all for speech therapy as soon as you can get it. If it's going to be months, I'd start with private. I'd also start the process with the school program in case private becomes too cost-prohibitive.

Actually no it's not that big of a deficit.

Thank you for the clarification. I was unaware of your degrees in speech and language pathology.

And now you know! The more you know.

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