Speech Evaluation/therapy

C. - We also have used OCH in Coppell for my daughter and have seen good results. She also gets speech therapy through the school district, but OCH has helped reinforce it and also given me a lot of ways to help her at home. Just as someone else said, that staff is wonderful, seems to enjoy working with children and makes the child feel at comfortable. (I've also heard good things about OCH Grapevine, but just don't have any experience with them.)

my son had an expressive delay and some articulation issues as well. We went through OCH in coppell. I can't say enough good things about our experience. The therapists are all highly qualified, experienced and very nice. Our ped also had us go the private route, which was fine especially since our insurance covered it. What I got from talking to other moms who went through eci and talking to various STs, is that OCH was more aggressive and we got more therapy than we would have through ECI (and perhaps, but I don't know, the school district) since he really only had the one delay. My son was never made to feel "abnormal" or anything like that. On the contrary.

Feel free to message me privately with any questions.

I have to agree with the last poster. I have a 4 year old son who has some articulation issues. I went through the testing process at Keller ISD. He passed. I would go through your local school system to have your son tested. It's free, it's fairly easy, and they will let you know if there is something wrong. Please don't worry about your son's speech. It will perfect in time, I assure you.

I disagree with your pediatrician, especially for a 3 year old boy. My experience is that some docs will just tell you what they think you want to hear. If you were to ask them what they would do if it were their child, I would bet the answer would be different.

Both my sons had issues with some speech oddities: mis-pronounced letters and some annunciation issues, even documented by an evaluation at school. However, around 7, my older son's issues were entirely gone and my younger son's resolved at around 10, but he is a very creative child and he can still revert to the "odd" annunciation (i.e., his "baby" voice). However, if you are worried, you should use what's available through the school system. My concern is that kids are very perceptive and IMHO this sends a very subtle message that there's something wrong with your son, when there very likely is not and per my experience with my younger son, it may suppress his creativity as he's trained that there is one "right" way to speak - he may later be afraid of being creative with his voice.

I disagree with the wait and see attitude. I think that you are absolutely right to get him started now. He MAY get better; however, if he doesn't he will take a much LONGER time to catch up (that's why Early childhood interevention exists, it's easier to fix when they are younger). I would recommend that you go private if you have good insurance. The reason being if he is mildly delayed and you place him in the public ECI, he gets labeled. The ISD gets more money for the delayed children, so they take a lot longer to take them out of the system. A college friend of mine had this issue. She finally dropped ECI and took him to private school to keep him from staying labeled as delayed. I took my youngest (preemie) for speech therapy at Cook's and she LOVED it. She felt like it was her own personal play time. That is really what they do, just play and work on the words to go with the play. She was borderline (She only said 5 words at 2), did 6 months worth of therapy and now talks ahead of her level. I have heard mixed things about Our Children's House, but I think that is true of many places. You have to find a good therapist, not just a good program. Of course, it helps to have both :o)