Speech Therapy - Crystal Lake,IL

I want to applaud you for noticing that he may be hard to understand. My friend has a boy who at 5 I couldn't understand a darn word he said and she was in denial and refused to get him speech therapy.

I think an evaluation wouldn't hurt. The other Mamas have already given you great tips on checking with insurance, etc. But I think to take the time to have him evaluated will give you a lot of answers.

My son started speech therapy at about 12 months old. (I think... hard to remember). Anyway, he didn't speak until he was 3 and we signed before that. Speech therapy was wonderful b/c not only did she work w/him, but she gave me a lot of great tips on how to enhance his speech at home. Now he's 6 (will be 7 in June) and he never shuts up!!!! I'm so thankful he got that intervention that got him back up to where he should be. You'd never know now that he ever had a problem.

Good luck!!!

Your school district should have an evaluation process/program. Definately go to that because if he qualifies they are obligated to provide him some level of services. That being said, the criteria for services through the district is fuzzy and you may find that you are denied for some reason, or you may get services, but not at the level you want. Most insurance provides some coverage, so you could get a private eval as well. My son gets PT (different service but same idea...) through our school district, but I was not happy with his progress. We are supplementing with private PT as well and he is really blossoming. Good luck!

Definitely contact your school district for "early intervention". They will help get speech therapy involved. We did speech therapy through the school for our daughter. It was great because they teach you what issues your child has and what "homework" you can do at home to help facilitate better speech. The speech therapist will teach you what's normal for his age and what isn't.

Two other things in the meantime...

First, try teaching him a bit of sign language. When my daughter was 3 we had so much trouble understanding her (she had articulation problems). She was so frustrated because it was hard to communicate. We found that by learning a couple signs per week she was able to communicate with us. (We stuck to basic ones like "help", "more", "play", etc.) By the time she was 4 we were using up to 30 signs and it really helped with the frustration. Some say signing hinders speech, but we didn't find that to be true. Also, we really liked the Signing Time DVDs. You could probably find them at your local library.

Second, a fun CD is speechercize. It's a CD that has you doing facial exercises and helps with mouth and tongue muscle development. You might be able to find it at your local library, otherwise you can find it on amazon.com

Good luck, and good for you for being your kid's advocate!

Contact the public school the day he turns 3 and if he is far enough behind/delayed they will get him the help he needs.
But for now keep making him do his sounds the right way but don't let him get frustrated if he doesn't get it right. Just let it go and try again another time. At this point he has to relearn how to talk the right way. I have been dealing with this with my son for a few years now and he is 5.
Have you had his hearing checked out by and ENT? My son couldn't hear properly because his ears were all blocked up.

Speech Therapy made a huge difference for my son. He was getting help through our school district, but it just wasn't getting the results I was expecting, so I contacted our local children's hospital. I took him twice a week for 1 hour sessions one on one, after 6 months his speech was so improved that people we hadn't seen in a while were amazed.

We went from him standing in the middle of the kitchen pointing and screaming to him actually asking for what he wanted, WHAT A RELIEF!!

Do the testing and see what they have to say. I had to kind of fight with the people at the childrens hospital initially because he was getting services at school, but once they tested him they saw what I was talking about and got him in for therapy. One of my proudest "Mom" accomplishments is fighting for my child to get the help he needed with speech. The twice a week thing was a pain at times, but SO worth it!!

M

We had our now 4 yr old tested at 3 through our local school. They agreed that he needed some speech therapy. We put him in pre school this year and he goes to therapy once a week. They work with him while he is in school. we went over an IEP and agreed on it at the begining of the school year and she sends us reports on how he is doing once a month. She sends home the letters they are working on each week and when he gets home on tuesday's we ask him what he learned and he shows us how he does the letters ( like "k" he puts his finger on the tip of his tongue so he remembers to use the back of his tongue to make the noise... "gr" he holds his throat reminding him to use the back of his throat to make the sound, he wasn't able to do that combo at all) then when he is talking and makes the sound wrong he mimic the action and say the word again and then he does it and its usually the right way.

Being around other kids his age alone has helped him alot but the speech therapist is also doing wonders!!

With our son I saw problems by 2. The ped said he would catch on soon being the 4th he didn't really need to talk so he didn't... but it was more than that.

Why not just have him tested, especially if he is already experiencing frustration? All states have some kind of Child Find program to identify,test and help kids with delays before they enter school. My niece had an articulation delay and she was put into a weekly speech group that helped her with her pronunciation and showed her mom exercises to do during the week. If your son qualifies, then his speech therapy would be covered in the state program. You can also go to a private practice and see if it is covered by insurance. Trust me, it's worth every penny!

http://www.childfindidea.org/overview.htm

you could also do a search on something like Child Find IDEA Part B Illinois Your local elementary school or preschool would also probably have the name and phone number of someone to contact.

Many speech therapy clinics offer free screening. That's how we had our daughter (then age 4) diagnosed. I encourage you to have him screened, talk to your pediatrician and see if maybe a few weeks of therapy might help. Our daughter has a lateral lisp and we started therapy 9 months ago and her speech is completely transformed. It was definitely worth the money and time!

Sounds more like an articulate delay than an actual speech delay. He's speaking, has a vocabulary, you just don't understand him.

Are you a fast talker? If so, slow down. Have him slow down as well. Point to your mouth and have him do the same, while repeating the words he's tripping over.

My son is 2 years old and has a severe speech delay. What you're describing sounds very age appropriate. Once your kiddo hits preK and K, his speech will grow in leaps and bounds when he sees his peers speaking properly.

Doesn't sound like you have anything to worry about ;)

I just typed two paragraphs and accidentally closed my browser! Ahh!

I have to go teach a class in a moment, so hopefully I can add more later.

If I were you, I would first call your health insurance and find out what they would pay for. Many, if not most, will not cover any services after the child is 3 years old because the local school district should cover them once the child turns 3.

If your insurance company will pay for it, go ahead and have him evaluated by the person your ped recommended. If not, call your local school.

Our son will be 3 next week. He has been going to speech since August, and is doing much better. He has been evaluated by our local school and will soon be going there for 30 minutes each week.

I didn't even realize my daughter needed speech until right before her 3rd birthday. She omitted a lot of sounds and did a lot of substitutions. ie., she would substitute "h" for a lot. We had a hard time understanding her at times but, hey, she was my first, and I hadn't spent a lot of time with little kids so I thought it was normal. But nonetheless, we realized while we couldn't understand her a lot, others couldn't understand her even more, and she would get frustrated because she couldn't communicate clearly, it got so bad, that we would ask her to use another word rather than the one she was trying to say.
So her Pediatrician referred her to a speech pathologist who evaluated her but by then she was 3 so we had to go through the school district. And they have been awesome, they tested her vision, hearing and did their own evaluation. Everyone warned us that we may have a hard time getting services but that was never the case. After 2 years, they recommended terminating services because she had made such great progress. We were a little leary because we were afraid they were just pushing her out the door and we wouldn't be able to get services again. 1 year later we decided she still needed it, called up the school district again and they had her scheduled again within weeks for another evaluation and began services again.
If there is any concern, I would proceed with seeking services, it won't hurt anything. My daughter has loved every single one of her speech therapists, I was concerned that there would be a stigma attached or that she would feel like she was different, but that is definitely not the case. The therapists always give us things to work on with her at home and provide us with ways to handle her speech. For example, we got so used to her speech that we needed to really pay attention to her speech so that we could correct her. Also, there were sounds that she physically couldn't make and so you can repeat it correctly and try to get her to say it, but if she physically can't make the sound yet it will only make the problem worse.

The suggestions below are great, so I won't reiterate all of them. Since he is 3, the school district can evaluate him, however you may need additional services. The fact that others cannot understand him will impact his ability to make friends, so don't take the wait and see approach for too long.

Speech therapists (good ones) make therapy so much fun. We never told my son that he was receiving therapy, we just said "we're going to Ann's". He loved it. If your son doesn't love it, try a different therapist.

Another suggestion is to get a full hearing evaluation done. My son needed tubes in his ear and we had no idea. He had lots of pressure on the ear drum and the tubes helped equalize it.

We used to use sign language, too. We didn't always use the official sign language- we would sometimes make up our own signs. We'd use the sign and at the same time say the word slowly. It helped reduce his frustration level (the speech therapy will help it immensely in time).

Definitely have him evaluated. Speech therapy has been a great gift to my nonverbal son, 5, who was diagnosed before 2 with autism. Evaluations are great and you can only gain from the experience. Since my son is nonverbal we work on the sounds he can make and the few words he can say, though not 100% accurate or clear are there. We also work with nonverbal communication through the use of PECS and he is also the 1st child in his autism preschool class to use the iPad2 for communicating! Therapy in the home was always through play and at school it is similar however seeing that he is older now more is expected of him but praise is always given for attempts as various sounds or vowel consonant combinations.

My son didn't start speaking in full sentences until he was 4 1/2. We were concerned and talked to his pediatrician quite a bit about putting him into speech therapy.

The doctor always recommended waiting, as all kids develop differently. And he would start talking when he was ready. His doctor thought thought that perhaps my hubby & I were talking too much for him, and not giving our son a chance to talk. That could have been true.

He was reading and writing when he was 4, but just not talking beyond a couple of words at a time.

And I kept reminding myself that Einstein didn't start talking til he was 4 or 5.

Now my son is almost 12 and talks non stop, and has no issues at all with his speech. He just developed at his own pace.

HTH

T.

My son also turned 3 in October. I had concerns regarding his speech since he was 2. My Ped kept saying he was meeting the base lines, so I shouldn't be concerned, he was just a little behind. And then he started acting out, hitting and biting because he was frustrated. I had him tested and he has been receiving speech therapy since last August. What a difference it has made. He still has a ways to go, but his progress in the last 6 months has been amazing! Last night was the first time he actually said, "I'm thirsty, can I have some juice?" Music to my ears. I started with the county Early Intervention program because he was just under 3 at the time. That transitioned into the school district on the 3rd birthday. At home we work with him, requiring him to use his words, repeating everything we say. Follow your instincts and get professional help. You can use a private therapist or see what your local school district has to offer. It will do nothing but help him. Good luck!!

Your school district, even at age 3, should help you. Prior to age 3 your child would have been eligible for Early Intervention. The school districts have excellent people who can help your son speak.