Speech Delay - Dallas,TX

My 3.5 y/o son has been in ST for about a year now. He goes twice a week to an elementary school, and he has 1 other girl in his class. It's only 25 minutes each session, which is about the max of his attention span. He loves it! To him, it is definitely more play than work, but he has made a HUGE improvement!!

Something I do is to never correct him if he says something wrong, but to repeat it in the correct way (hope that makes sense). I don't tell him he's wrong. And with my son, he leaves off the ending and some beginning sounds, so I try to exagerrate certain sounds when talking to him.

Both of my boys had speech therapy. The best advise is you do have to find the "right" one for your child's personality and needs. Also, it is extremely important to have a therapist that involves the parent. The parents should be able to observe and be engaged in the therapy and the therapist should leave "homework' for the parent. The child should look forward to therapy as most speech emergence therapy at that age is "play based" and then rewarded with something like a sticker. A good therapist can engage a child easily. The first therapist on for my older son didn't work. She took the authoritative approach with him and that just didn't work for him. Then on our next appointment with the next therapist, my son was jumping down with excitement and trying to talk so hard tears came to my eyes. Then our insurance changed with my younger son needed therapy and we had to search for another therapist. That therapist talked to my son like he was "2" (he was 3 at the time) and her toys were not age appropriate so he grew very tire of her quickly. She would come to me and say go home. She thought I was the distraction and asked me not to sit in anymore. So we switched and he loves his therapist now! I guess what I'm saying is, not all therapist our created equal for you and you should have one you and the child with love!

Speech therapists are fun! My son has had a few and each one has all these cool toys and gimmicks to keep kids interested and make therapy time very enjoyable and productive. If your grand daughter will be receiving private speech therapy, then her parents will be given homework assignments to do each week (again, these will be presented in a fun format also), which they really should do so that they can help their daughter progress as much as possible.

I am so glad that your grand daugther is getting the services that she needs. That is so awesome!

my 2.5 yr son has been recieving speech therapy for 6 mons now. he is my 2nd son and i think that has something to do with his delay-his needs get met through his brother. therapists comes 1x a week. she is great, i sit in on the session and use her techniques through out the day. she brings a big bag of toys and he has to ask for her to open it and then use words that she may prompt in order to get different parts of the toy ,etc. my son has no other developemental delays, but when they screened him he didnt show his full potential which is why he was able to get services. each state i believe has their own regulations, ny kids have to have 2 deviations from normal developement. it takes time so be patient

We LOVED ours! She came to our house once a week for about 3 months and the improvement was beyond amazing! My son was 26 months old and speaking at a 17 month old level when she started. 3 months later at 29 months old, he was speaking at a 36 month old level! They have the patience of a saint and will work with your child in ways that you would never think about! I cannot say enough good things about the work that she did and if my next child seems to be delayed, speech therapy will be started ASAP because it was SO helpful! Good luck! :)

Love Speech Therapists! I had one woman that came to home once a week for an hour for a little girl who has downs that I babysit. I just loved learning from her! I know use all these concepts with my own child, and other children that I watch. I also sign a bit, and I am learning more and more everyday. I also teach my kids to sign. It is so nice to be able to communicate with our children on different levels, and speech therapists are great teachers. They work on 1 syllable words to express, then move to 2 syllable words and so one. It is simple steps as "in", "out", "more"....colors, shapes...etc...

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depends on the delay and what type it is. with my oldest they played with him and made his look at them while talking to him they would emphasis the CH in chair. or the SP in spagetti. he only needed it about 6 months. now my 2 yr old is diffrent he can't hear right. with him I started using pecs and sign. eci uses sign and talks. we have a hard time to get him to look at us when we talk but occasionally if we use a really loud voice he will attempt to repeat. but they dont come out right. he is being evaluated right now to see what they want to do with him. he wont talk on his own but will mimic.

when he says please it comes out lea. when he says banana it come out dadada. cereal comes out real. bye bye is dada. what is that comes out plain as day but he says that about everything. he just started saying yes and no but mostly nods. they teach speech differently for each kid depending on what is causing it. most of storms speech is trying to mimic right now. we are weeding through red tape not going into the drama. they color and play with my oldest they would color like a picture of a football which was one of his hard words they would tell him the word slowly and loudly putting emphasis on certain parts of the word. and right now with my 2 yr old we word on saying the word loud enough to get him to mimic us.

my oldest could follow directions my youngest copy cats not follow directions.so they may or may not do your granddaughter like other moms will explain. it is well worth it and hopefully like my oldest she wont need it long.