January 2016 Moms

Speech Therapy

hi there! Anyone with littles in speech therapy? 
My daughter is 19 months and has qualified for therapy . She has 8-10 words. 
Many one with experience in this?  Views? What to expect, results, etc?

Re: Speech Therapy

  • My stepson attended speech therapy, although not until preschool.
    As a kid who attended speech therapy herself (mild stutter,) and with my experience with Noah, early intervention is best. Keep an open mind, and do your best to make it fun for LO. From what I've seen and experienced, at this age, it only takes a little while to get caught back up, and it's not something that has to happen long-term.
  • @jgonzalez20 No experience with speech therapy, but in addition to that, as far as making things fun, they play this song at my DD's daycare and she is obsessed with it - maybe your LO would like it too?  It's really helped her understand letter sounds and how to sound out words.  And she just plain loves it anyway: she requests it like 5 times a day.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW7N64zsrs0
  • Loading the player...
  • @jgonzalez20 no experience either but curious, as you mention the # of words your daughter has, is that the reason speech therapy was recommended?  My daughter has about the same # of words.  At her 18 month checkup the doctor asked whether she had at least x amount of words (I forget what the number was, maybe 6?) I said she didn't really have that # and the doctor just moved on without saying anything more about it and I forgot to ask & follow up so since then I've been curious... 
  • Brynlee has no need for speech therapy, but her older brother, my 2 year old, is currently in speech therapy. 
    If you are offered it, take it. What is honestly the worst that could come of it?  Our insurance has covered everything and it's making an absolute world of difference. Honestly, I'm angry at myself for not starting earlier. 
    My son, Cohen, was put into speech therapy right around his 2nd birthday. They think he may have Speech Apraxia, which is essentially a disconnect in the wiring between his brain and his mouth (lacking muscle control to form words and sounds). He had pretty much no words. He has a speech teacher come to the house once a week and he attends a speech play group. Next week, he actually is starting with a much more intensive therapy including one on one time with a doctor. 
    His improvements already are incredible. In 6 months, he went from speaking no words, to learning sign language (60+ signs), to now carrying conversation.  He loves to identify animal sounds and colors. I cannot tell you how much speech therapy has improved our lives. Start it early if you can. I can't think of a single negative that could come out of it. 
  • jgonzalez20jgonzalez20 member
    edited August 2017
    @maureenmce Thank you! I know I am glad that we are being proactive about it early on. I guess I just am unsure because it's something that's new to me.  I am hoping she catches up soon, thank you for your words of encouragement 
  • @jgonzalez20 no experience either but curious, as you mention the # of words your daughter has, is that the reason speech therapy was recommended?  My daughter has about the same # of words.  At her 18 month checkup the doctor asked whether she had at least x amount of words (I forget what the number was, maybe 6?) I said she didn't really have that # and the doctor just moved on without saying anything more about it and I forgot to ask & follow up so since then I've been curious... 
    @juliaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa that is what was so confusing. At her 18 check up we discussed how she has few words and the pediatrician didn't seem that put off but the amount she had. However I noticed that her tantrums peaked and her frustrations were high and she just could communicate her wants. She's a stay at home babe so I facilitate a lot of her speaking, sometimes just picking up on what she wants without her having to ask me. I guess I need to make her work for it.

    at the evaluation they confirmed that she would benefit from the therapy simply because sometimes when I ask her basic commands she either 1- looks at me, then ignores me and goes and plays or 2- just doesn't seem to grasp what I'm saying UNLESS I use cues ( like hand gestures)

    also i asked the speech pathologist how many words she should have by 18 months and she said 40?!?
  •  After the evaluation I felt like such a failure. That I had not done enough to encourage my little one to start speaking. Basically I went on overdrive researching ways to help from home. But keeping her actively engaged for that long is exhausting!  In 1 week she learned 4 new words however so it is paying off.

    I am trying  to keep in mind that everyone develops differently and at different rates and that is OK. I just want to see my LO thrive. 
  • @jgonzalez20 Don't ever feel like a failure! Just use those emotions as a driving force to do what's best for your child. At my son's evaluation, at 2 years old, he was considered to be at a level of 6-9 months for communication. I was completely devastated. I went to college for special education and early childhood education! It felt like a smack in the face for all the years I studied how to work with these kids... and yet, I couldn't help my own?! 
    Therapy has helped drastically. He responds great to people that aren't me, too (he's stuck with me all day, every day). He's come so so so far. It takes a lot of work, but it's worth it. Keep at it! 
  • Thank you @jgonzalez20 and thanks for sharing your positive experience with the speech therapy @barrettj89  I will keep it in mind and try to get another opinion for my daughter.  We speak 2 languages to her so I had assumed that her limited words was due to that and would catch up eventually.  Up until she was 18 months I was her main caretaker.  I still am but she now also goes to daycare in the mornings and spends some time with a nanny.  She has changed and learned new things so fast since starting daycare.  Still has a fairly limited number of words but it doesn't seem like the kids her age at daycare have more than her so I hadn't even thought about potentially needing help with talking...  Will keep it in mind though, especially hearing @barrettj89's positive experience and the importance of starting early.  
  • @jgonzalez20 Don't feel bad at all!  It sounds like you're doing an amazing job - and 4 new words is awesome!  

    @juliaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I remember reading somewhere that it is true that bilingual kiddos may have fewer words at first, but they definitely catch up! And I also remember reading how great learning multiple languages is for little ones in terms of brain development!
  • @jgonzales20 don't feel bad at all!  It sounds like you're doing great.  Would love to hear what tips you found to teach new words, sounds like quite an achievement to add 4 in such a short amount of time.  Wanted to share an update as I had a chance to ask our doctor about # of words and speech therapy.  I hope this helps.  Our Doctor said he had never heard about a threshold number of words for an 18 month old and that being used as a criteria to recommend speech therapy (but that he could see it happen in certain environments more due to peer pressure or tendencies to over prescribe). He didn't seem surprised or concerned that my daughter has less than 10 words.  He said what he looks for is if a child interacts and seems to understand when you talk to them (my daughter seems to understand but very selectively which I can't always tell if it means she doesn't understand or she doesn't want to listen.  I mentioned that and he seemed fine with it).  He said typically they look if a child has at least 2-3 words at 18 months and then he said at age 2 they want to see a combination of 2 words.  He said it didn't need to be anything fancy or even anything that made a lot of sense, he gave as examples for the 2 words combo "big dog" "bad cat" type things...  Asking him made me feel a lot better.  That said I don't see any reasons to not try speech therapy especially given the benefits of it being started early.  If I was experiencing tantrums and there was a chance it could help I would probably try it if I could and if someone recommended it.  That said if the person recommending speech therapy was a speech therapist I would also get a second opinion from my pediatrician just to make sure the main care giver is on the same page and that the speech therapist is not just doing it to drum up business (I've had bad experiences before with specialists saying something is needed when it was not, but in the case of speech therapy I don't think there are any negatives to doing it, even if it's not "needed" it probably can't hurt as long as you don't mind adding it to your schedule/budget etc...)

    Hope this helps and hope you are doing well !  
  • I would also be interested in the techniques used to get 4 new words that quickly.  
    Zack probably has about 30 or so words, but recently he's gotten really lazy about using them and he just points and says "uh uh" for everything.  We can usually figure out what he means, but have been trying hard to get him to "use your words"
  • @juliaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa DS has only 5ish words at 19 months now. At his 18 month appointment our pediatrician was also more interested in how well he interacted and seemed to understand what you were saying. DS can point out things in a book, bring us objects we ask for, responds by nodding yes or shaking his head no, and makes 10-15 animal noises. She emphasised that understanding at this age was waaaaayyy more important than the actual speech part. She's seen plenty of kids that understand really well, but don't use actual words until 2.5-3. I have a feeling DS is going to be one of those kids that starts speaking full sentences at 2.5 and just never stops.
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