Talk to me about speech therapy with young toddlers.

[AimeeM]

I've asked about this pertaining to my 5 year old, but his progress in speech has made leaps and bounds and we no longer worry about his speech.

 

My 2 year old (turned 2 in June) was referred out to our local county services, which provides early intervention with no income restrictions (woohoo! We thought we'd have to go through our insurance).

 

While neither of my older two children spoke until 3, they are both considered normal in speech development now, so I wasn't initially concerned about Marco's speech, assuming he would progress as his older siblings had, and if he didn't, THEN I would find speech services for him. Well, the doctor talked me into taking the eval, because if he isn't "in their system" by age 3, the program changes and IS, at that point, income restricted.

 

Also, Marco's tantrums when he can't effectively communicate are becoming troublesome - he will repeatedly hit his head against the floor (all hardwoods). At no other time does he "self harm" - only when he wants something and we either can't understand him, or if we say "no"; at all other times he is a very happy, very busy, very mischievous little boy :D

 

He had a blast with the eval today. They come to our home and he just thought it was a fabulous playdate where all attention was on him, lol. It was a general eval, though, which evaluated all areas of development, not just speech. Although I do not have the formal evaluation, she walked me through the scoring before she left and said the following:

 

He is an exceptionally intelligent little boy with very limited verbal communication abilities. Quick to lose patience. Definitely "busy" (lol), and had a difficult time maintaining focus because of his "busyness" (not abnormal for his age). At times she could tell he purposefully did the opposite of what was asked, with a mischievous grin and a giggle.

 

She does hope he qualifies, because she feels that the program (which is centered around Marco's familiar area - our home - and at our schedule) would do wonders for his speech.

 

So what does a normal speech therapy session look like at this age? 

 

 

[Dory]

Both my boys were evaluated at about 2 1/2yrs. They both went into speech therapy after that. My oldest definitely improved although there were other problems that weren't figured out until he was older. I'm glad that he had at least a little bit of help early on. My youngest, on the other hand, had no interest in working with someone and would get pretty manipulative. The speech therapist here wasn't good enough to really keep up with his mind games even at that age.

 

They blew bubbles to get the kids to make the proper rounded shape with their lips. Would build puzzles that had things that would work on the sounds they were struggling with. Kicked a ball back and forth to get him to say his 'k' sound. Lots of play like that.

[redsquirrel]

It looks a lot like a fabulous playdate where they get all the attention, lol.

 

It is in your home and it can be a challenge to keep older kids away from the therapists 'stuff', lol. My son's SLPs always came with a big bag of toys and other things. What they do really depends on what his challenges are. With my son at first it was just getting him to learn to mimic sounds. So she would do things like pull out playdoh and cut it with a play knife and say "I am Cutting, Cut, Cut, Cut, now you try" and every time he cuts she says 'Cut" and hits that "C" hard. She might ask you or his siblings to try to Cut, hoping to get the mimic response etc. 

 

It is stuff like that. Or the SLP might work on the back and forth of conversation, or following directions etc. They might ask if they can pull the older kids into the therapy as models or as partners. They are very used to working in homes with other kids.

 

In my experience EI (early intervention) is super easy to work with. I asked for 4 sessions of therapy a week an we got it! After EI you don't get to ask for more therapy, lol. But certainly if given the opportunity ask for at least 2 session a week. A little one needs the regular contact.

 

 

[Ottakee]

I would certainly take advantage of the services.  I wish we had done more intensive therapy with one of our dds when she was younger.  We did therapy but not starting quite that young and not as intense.  Knowing what I know now though,  I would have pushed for more as I am a big one on early intervention.........and as others have said, most of the times the kids see it as a great fun play time.

[AimeeM]

It looks a lot like a fabulous playdate where they get all the attention, lol.

 

It is in your home and it can be a challenge to keep older kids away from the therapists 'stuff', lol. My son's SLPs always came with a big bag of toys and other things. What they do really depends on what his challenges are. With my son at first it was just getting him to learn to mimic sounds. So she would do things like pull out playdoh and cut it with a play knife and say "I am Cutting, Cut, Cut, Cut, now you try" and every time he cuts she says 'Cut" and hits that "C" hard. She might ask you or his siblings to try to Cut, hoping to get the mimic response etc. 

 

It is stuff like that. Or the SLP might work on the back and forth of conversation, or following directions etc. They might ask if they can pull the older kids into the therapy as models or as partners. They are very used to working in homes with other kids.

 

In my experience EI (early intervention) is super easy to work with. I asked for 4 sessions of therapy a week an we got it! After EI you don't get to ask for more therapy, lol. But certainly if given the opportunity ask for at least 2 session a week. A little one needs the regular contact.

Nico (DS5) only wanted to say "hi", lol. They DID come with a bag full of toys - Marco loved that. I loved that they got on the floor with him.

 

Apparently I have a list of service providers whom I can choose from, and if I do not like one, I can request (and will be given) an immediate replacement. 

 

He would be starting, I think, with the very basics. He can't even mimic most animal sounds. The only words he has are word fragments, mono-syllable fragments of words, and never strings together (except for one Italian rhyme my husband does with him - for whatever reason, he will string his sentence fragments there, and almost correctly). His only words are "ma" (mom or more), "da" (dad or dog), "cha" (chocolate), "dri" (drink), "din" (dance), "guh" (good), "num", "ea" (eat), "sa" (sissy), and "ba" (brother). He will TRY to mimic a sound, but cannot, for whatever reason, seems to string sounds together (even animal sounds, like "meow" - he says "ow").

 

I do get to request the services I want, so I'll definitely ask for at least twice a week if that's what you suggest.

[wapiti]

Also, Marco's tantrums when he can't effectively communicate are becoming troublesome - he will repeatedly hit his head against the floor (all hardwoods). 

 

Poor thing.  FWIW, one of my boys did this at the exact same age.   He started speaking around his 3rd birthday and then his speech took off.  (eta, he had speech therapy through EI as well, as a matter of course, though I don't think it helped nearly as much as the ear tubes.)

[gingersmom]

Definitely take advantage.

 

My son started at 18 months, switched to private therapy at 3 and did not speak till he was almost 4.

 

My son was also extremely unhappy with his lack of speech/being understood.

 

It's like they wave a magic wand, your child will be happy as a clam and before you know it they are chattering up a storm.

[AimeeM]

Poor thing.  FWIW, one of my boys did this at the exact same age.   He started speaking around his 3rd birthday and then his speech took off.  (eta, he had speech therapy through EI as well, as a matter of course, though I don't think it helped nearly as much as the ear tubes.)

Hearing is something that I think they want checked as well, although they noted that after the eval, he didn't appear to have problem hearing or following directions. My younger sister had tubes in her ears, and was partially deaf prior to that, although I'm not sure what specifically was wrong, so they consider it a "family trait" and mentioned it at our eval.

[redsquirrel]

When ds had his EI evaluation, they had all children with speech issues get a hearing test. He had one when he was a little guy of 18 months and another test before they discharged him from EI to school based therapy.

[Lawana]

Dd had speech therapy starting at 2 and a bit. At that point she had only two sound associations: "ma" stood for ball, broom, ballon, and bottle; "khee" stood for cookie, juice, and keys. Nothing for mama or daddy. Her receptive language was just fine.

 

Since she was for all intents and purposes nonverbal, they started her with signing, which she picked up easily and used effectively. The therapy sessions themselves were play based, and very enjoyable. She progressed well and tested to within one standard deviation by the time she was 4 1/2.