Speech Therapy - if your child has done it, did it improve speech? If so...

[babs]

how much improvement? How much time was needed for improvement? My ds age 7 was diagnosed with a tongue thrust and has trouble pronouncing "s" clearly (no surprise).

 

Is the money and MONUMENTAL effort involved going to pay off?

 

Thanks for input...seems like all the kids I know who went to ST ended up about the same - some improved later (as they got older the issues worked themselves out.)

 

I hope this does not offend those in the profession...

[tdeveson]

My nephew had a pronounced lisp when he was younger. He had delayed speech and we figured he would outgrow it. By third grade it was unresolved and he'd say things like "funder" instead of "thunder." It was very noticeable.

 

When it became apparent that he wasn't going to outgrow it, my sister went to school and had him evaluated and put in speech therapy. (Tell me three teachers during three consecutive years didn't notice.) He did speech therapy for a year or two and his speech cleared up completely. It was provided by the public school system and didn't cost anything.

 

He is 25, married, and speaks perfectly now.

 

This is my only experience with speech therapy for kids, but in our case it was a 100% solution.

[jujsky]

Yes, it helped my son and was well worth the $$$$$. My son had trouble pronouncing 80% of his sounds clearly, so it sounds like it was a much more severe problem than what your son has. He was also younger than your son. He did speech therapy from 3 1/2 -- 5, I think. They gave me lots of exercises so I could work with him daily at home. I am certain that without the ST, he wouldn't be where he is now in terms of speaking clearly.

[WiseOwlKnits]

I'm curious about this too. I've always wondered what percentage of kids would outgrow speech problems with or without help...

[LunaLee]

My ds's been in speech therapy for about a year now and I've only noticed a small change. His difficulty is 'r' and 'r' blends. We were told when he was first evaluated that at his age he will improve if he wants to, and that therapy wouldn't necessarily fix it. I was kind of put off by that at first, but now I see what they meant.

 

Technically, his speech has improved by about 30-40% since he first started, but his new therapist was just questioning me yesterday if I had noticed an improvment and she's thinking that the little accent he has is just his speech pattern. He does really well in a controlled conversation, but if he doesn't slow down when he speaks and think about it, it still comes out like he's from New York. I think we are quickly approaching the point where the therapist is going to say "We've done all we can here.." Which is fine I guess, at least he has learned to prounounce the sounds correctly, and what he does with the knowledge is up to him.

 

Our charter school pays for his therapy, it's the main reason I chose to go with a charter actually, so we don't pay for anything. I would have come up with a way to pay for it if I had to though, because then at least I know that we tried.

 

OTOH...My dh had a lisp as a kid and speech therapy at school completely fixed it. He has no trace of a lisp now and I do know the problem was fixed while he was still in grade school.

[DawnL]

My son had terrible speech issues. He went to a private therapist when he was 2 until our insurance ran out, and it didn't really help him. I think his main problem is that he has a sensory processing disorder and he doesn't slow down at all. I honestly think that he never learned to slow down enough to properly enunciate.

 

I tried to get him qualified through the state, Birth to Three, for speech therapy. Both times they tested him, he missed qualifying by ONE POINT! (Which is total bunk. The ST at the Children's Hospital was begging me to get him in somewhere. Their own waiting list was too long.)

 

I took him to the school district at 4.5 years old. When they tested him, he showed the articulation of an 18 month old. That's what happens when a child isn't given the help they need.

 

After a year of speech at the school district, he sounded wonderful! He didn't even need to go this year, but he enjoyed it, so I brought him anyway. I just had a meeting with the school today to reevaluate, and they will be graduating him next week. He sounds as good as he could possibly sound!

[Sarah CB]

how much improvement? How much time was needed for improvement? My ds age 7 was diagnosed with a tongue thrust and has trouble pronouncing "s" clearly (no surprise).

 

Is the money and MONUMENTAL effort involved going to pay off?

 

Thanks for input...seems like all the kids I know who went to ST ended up about the same - some improved later (as they got older the issues worked themselves out.)

 

I hope this does not offend those in the profession...

 

You'll only get out of it what you put into it. We were told that my ds had an 18 month speech delay at age 3 1/2. He was put onto a waitlist and we eventually got in to speech therapy sessions at our community health unit when he was four. The speech pathologists there were amazing. They showed me exactly how to help him and through the months that they were there they guided us through the steps needed to get from where we were to where we ended up. Ds made *huge* gains that year. The therapists stressed that we needed to work on speech multiple times throughout the day. We put a big emphasis on speech that year and ds really loved it. It meant playing a lot of games with me and getting a lot of attention and one-on-one time.

 

The next year he was kindergarten age and speech was no longer available to us at the health unit. We had to pay for private therapy. The therapist came to our house and worked with ds on his own. I had a new baby that year so I didn't attend the sessions and, to be honest, I didn't really work with ds much during the week. His progress that year was very slow, but luckily he didn't have much to work on by that point anyway.

 

If you're willing to learn how to help your ds and if you're willing to work with him each day and attend the sessions then you will see a much more drastic improvement than if you just send him to speech and hope that he picks it up on his own.

 

As with just about anything, I think that parental involvement is the most important key to success.

[jenL]

My eldest began speech therapy when he was 4 because he was considered delayed. Our insurance paid for it, but his issues were such that we would have paid out of pocket. He couldn't pronounce "y", the hard "g" sound, "k" and a few other sounds that I can't remember now. His name begins with a hard G sound so he couldn't even say his own name properly. Anyway, it was 100% worth it for us. He improved quickly and was done in about a year, if I remember correctly. Speaking is something we all need to do to survive, so it was essential to us that he could be understood.

 

My youngest is showing signs of speech issues; I anticipate us taking him to therapy at some point too. Apparently, it's very common if one child has speech issues for subsequent children to have them too.

[msjones]

I did it myself. My pediatrician had told me my son would grow out of his lisp, but he didn't.

 

I took him in to a speech therapist at age 7, and was told he needed therapy for a lisp and tongue thrust. He also pronounced /f/ instead of /th/. (i.e. "birfday instead of "birthday").

 

We did not have the money, plain and simple. Our school district no longer serves kids with mild articulation problems -- the focus is on receptive/expressive language delays.

 

It was going to cost 150/hr to treat the lisp and tongue thrust. I think the total would have been close to 3,000 dollars.

 

So I got online and began frantically researching lisp/tongue thrust therapy.

 

I found a site that specifically taught how to form a /s/ -- down to the details of tongue positioning etc. (I can't find the site right now, but will look and post it if I find it...) We had to use a little mirror to be sure he was doing it, and it took some patient persistence -- but he learned to do it!

 

This link:

http:///www.deafhomeschool.com/essentials/deafeducation/articulations.html

has a step-by-step plan for working on the /s/. I followed it closely, providing lots and lots of reinforcement during the day by carrying around a bag of nickels and pennies. Each time I heard him do the /s/ correctly, he got to take a coin.

 

6 weeks and the lisp was gone. :001_smile: He never had any articulation problems again. All it cost was the nickels and pennies!

[msjones]

I found it!

Here's the procedure I used to teach my son to pronounce the /s/ correctly:

 

http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/fsd-butterfly-procedure.htm

 

You'll see that this is for a certain type of 'lisp'; there are several ways to mispronounce the /s/. If you read the whole article, you may be able to determine what type of lisp your child has.

 

I was so concerned about my lisping son, and soooo relieved that my home-style intervention was enough. I'm sure that not all kids can be treated at home but, in our case, it was worth a try. Best of luck to you!

[JoyfulMama]

I found it!

Here's the procedure I used to teach my son to pronounce the /s/ correctly:

 

http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/fsd-butterfly-procedure.htm

 

You'll see that this is for a certain type of 'lisp'; there are several ways to mispronounce the /s/. If you read the whole article, you may be able to determine what type of lisp your child has.

 

I was so concerned about my lisping son, and soooo relieved that my home-style intervention was enough. I'm sure that not all kids can be treated at home but, in our case, it was worth a try. Best of luck to you!

 

Thank you for sharing this! It is something on my list to work on with my son - he conquerred hard "y" last year, and I know we need to start paying more attention to "s". (Not surprising, as I attended ST for S and SH. All I remember doing was tongue twisters, which I still can't say.)

MIL has started to talk to ds differently, ennunciating her S's, which ds finds frustrating. He knows what the words are supposed to sound like, and he admits the words are hard to say, but I believe that age has a lot to do with it, and he is also currently missing two front teeth.

[Blue Hen]

My youngest was found to have severe verbal dyspraxia at age 23months. Very bright boy. Without intense speech therapy we were told that he would never talk. With intense speech therapy we were told that he might be understandable by those familiar with him by age 8 or 10. Pretty bleak picture.

 

M**** began speech therapy at 23 months, 1 hr / week one-on-one and 2 play groups a week with therapists. I was given instruction on play-therapy to do with him at home.

 

M**** turned 3yo and he was picked up by the public school system where we llived in Massachusetts. THANKFULLY, the school had just hired a new speech therapist whose area of expertise was dyspraxia. THANKFULLY, we were living in that state where therapy is provided at the child's needs. It was a fight and my knowledge of special ed law helped tremendously to obtain one-to-one speech therapy 5x a week, preschool 3x a week with speech therapy and OT. He also received this 50 weeks out of the year, for 3 solid years. He was then placed on retention since he was speaking within age appropriate boundaries. We moved and Delaware does not provide services to homeschoolers. We've done things on our own here.

 

Was it time consuming? Absolutely.

 

Was it worth it? M*** was talking by age 4-1/2, making more than just a 'ba' or 'ma' sounds. I still remember exactly where we were when he uttered 'I uv you ma' He was 5 yo and it was the first time.

 

At the age of 8 and still at 10, people unfamiliar with M**** speech had great difficulty understanding him.

 

Last year I heard one of his friends tell a new kid that M**** had an accent but that was OK.

 

At almost 14yo he still has some problems making an 'r' sound and he often gets asked if he is from Britian. That is the accent he has for some reason.

 

I know this isn't your child's issue but just one more thing to share. I have family members who think it was stupid for me to take my ds to therapy, that he would just have learned to talk on his own when he was ready to. When M**** was about 8 we met his soccer coach's oldest son, a 14yo at the time. A smart kid whose speech was incomprehensible. Even his mom had trouble understanding him. I learned that he had severe verbal dyspraxia and had received 1 or 2 times per week group therapy from the school throughout his school years. Nothing one-one, no summer therapy, nothing intense. Inappropriate therapy and there but by the grace of God went my son. Appropriate therapy is what you must search for. :)

Edited January 14, 2010 by Blue Hen
added 'his'

[msjones]

Thank you for sharing this! It is something on my list to work on with my son - he conquerred hard "y" last year, and I know we need to start paying more attention to "s". (Not surprising, as I attended ST for S and SH. All I remember doing was tongue twisters, which I still can't say.)

MIL has started to talk to ds differently, ennunciating her S's, which ds finds frustrating. He knows what the words are supposed to sound like, and he admits the words are hard to say, but I believe that age has a lot to do with it, and he is also currently missing two front teeth.

 

I hope those links help you to help your son. I was very surprised and pleased at how quickly my son progressed. We worked twice daily for 15 minutes each session. Let me tell you -- I was motivated to save all that money! Whenever I thought of skipping a session, I thought of the $150/week I might save. ;)

 

And I really focused on reinforcing his effort with those nickels and pennies. Just 6 weeks! The therapist had predicted up to 2 years of weekly therapy.

 

I'd say that if you already conquered the 'y', you're ready for the /s/. Good luck!

[bookmomma]

My son did three years of speech therapy. It was a lot of work to take him to the ST, but it did help a lot. He had confidence issues, so the speech therapy helped him a lot faster than the wait it out method. My younger son has some lisps, etc. but we just work with him at home. I learned a lot throught the process, and he's not as severe, so I feel like I can handle it at home. Besides, he's only 7.

[Holly in FL]

My middle child...now 8yo DD...started ST when she was 2.5yo. At 2yo...when she could only say 5 words...I knew something was wrong. At 2.5 she could say 10 words. So, we followed the guidance of our pediatrician and had her hearing checked. That was fine. Finding a therapist was the next step. After talking to a number of friends...I found one that was highly recommended.

 

After only 3 sessions...our DD was saying three-word sentences. She had something called developmental apraxia.

 

Anyhoo...it may be that ST worked so well for our DD because she started at such a young age...before any issues had time to become ingrained.

 

Fortunately, our insurance company paid for 60 sessions per year. We only paid for 3 months each of the three years...and, for the last 5 months...because the insurance company deemed her "cured" when she reached 80% proficient. We wanted her to finish when the therapist said she was done!

 

For us...it was worth the time and money...but, we didn't have to pay out or pocket for the full amount. However, we still would have spent the money even if we had to pay the full amount.

 

I hope that helps!

~Holly

[Haiku]

My ds has been in speech therapy on and off since he was three (we have taken periodic breaks due to hearing issues and development issues). ST has helped him enormously. As recently as 18 months ago, no one outside the family understood him (and there were times when only his sister could understand him. They are artificial twins and extremely close, and at times she had to translate for him so *I* could understand). They target the specific sounds he has trouble with and play games with him to help him practice those sounds. We work together at home with flashcards and games.

 

I think my ds's speech would be unintelligible had he not had ST. As it stands, he will probably be in speech for a few more years, but that's not because the ST doesn't help. It's because my ds has very severe speech issues.

 

Tara