I have a 3yr old family member who is not speaking. He uses hand gestures when he wants to communicate, or points. Where in (Munster) Indiana can I find a resource center that is based on a sliding scale rate? All your help or insight would be greatly appreciated.
Currently looking for a speech therapist or an autism center in Munster IN.
Try contacting the doctor first, The doctor may have the child's hearing checked and then you can go from there. I think that's the first step. After that you most likely can get help from the public school system for free.
Contact your local school district and ask for the preschool special education administrator. Explain the situation to this person and then send a written request for evaluation. If you go through the school district there will be no fee for the evaluation or any services recommended.
For 3 you should call your local school they will provide services and point you in the direction for where to look for further assistance. I was going to suggest early intervention but they only provide services until the Childs third birthday.
Contact your local school district. They should be able to get him evaluated or point you in the right direction.
If his lack of speech is because can't, obviously you want to get him the help he needs. But, if he just doesn't speek because he is able to get what he wants without doing so then you may need to start verbalizing and then refuse to cooperate without him at least attempting to speak (Example..he points to a cup...don't just get him a drink. Say something like "Do you want a drink? What would you like? Milk or juice?).
At this age, has your doctor not referred you before now?
The reason you need to speak to your prediatrician, is because he/she will know what to look for to see if there is a hearing problem, a physical problem, a behavioral problem, a concern about autism, etc. This is a really important first step. Your ped will know what signs to look for and whether or not there is a concern to be referred. Your ped will also be able to help you decide whether it is simply delayed speech (not at all uncommon) or a more serious problem.
Contacting your local school district is also a very important step. They will have the resources to evaluate the child and check for all of those things mentioned above, including autism. Their services are free, and this is what they do! They are incredibly qualified.
I understand that you want services for speech therapy and autism, but these are the steps you need to take.
I didn't have time to read all the responses, so I don't know what anyone else has mentioned, but I wanted to give my 2 cents.
My three year old doesn't talk either. She says a few words, but other than that babbles and we have no idea what she is saying. I am not sure if your child makes noise at all or just doesn't say actual words. Contact your county's MRDD department or your local elementary school and see if you can get in touch with someone to help you with an Early Intervention program. It's available to kids when they turn 3 and they can get in more intensive speech therapy before they get into kindergarten. We just got ours LO started this month and so far we've already seen good progress! Good luck!
Since he is already 3, I think that you need to contact the pediatrician like some of the other Mom's suggested. My daughter was diagnosed with Apraxia when she was 2yrs old. We started with the Birth to Three program through our county, but was getting no results, so then our pediatrician referred us to Speech Therapy through the Hospital. The sooner the better. Our Speech Therapist recommended a book to read so that we understood what our daughter was going through. It's called the Late Talker.
Good Luck with everything!
call eci and have them evaluate him for the preschool. learning disabled preschoolers if qualify get sent to a preschool linked to eci. they can tell you where to take him if they cant help you. if you are on states insurance you can get him evaluated that way if any thing else go to wrightslaw.com and you can find people to evaluate him on a sliding scale there or possibly free.
find an ent they can check his ears which could very possibly be the problem and check his hearing for you and fix what can be fixed and refer you to a speech therapist. if he does not respond to loud noises do not hold out on a drink or what ever he wants because that means he is hard of hearing. and holding out on him would just fustrate him. I know what she is saying and if he is hard of hearing this will not help. mine is hard of hearing and doing something like that would cause a temper tantrum. you will have plenty of them without fustrating them further. if he makes any attempt right or wrong to imiate you make an issue out of it cheer clap and give him what he wants. mine points and cries and is hard of hearing he makes attempts to imitate me so he gets rewarded for any attempt to imitate me.
