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Any speech language pathologists out there, or parents of children who have received speech therapy? My 3yo dd (who will be 4 next week ) just had her annual physical. I mentioned to the pediatrician that she has trouble with the r and th sounds, saying cown for crown and fing for thing and that my husband has more difficulty understanding her than he did our son at that age. (I will note that my husband has a 70% hearing loss in both ears for which he wears hearing aids.) The pediatrician immediately recommended we get her a speech evaluation, as his stance is that it's better to seek an eval. when nothing is wrong than not to seek one when there is a need. (He also mentioned that it's our tax dollars, so why not! ) When I called our local children's hospital, they said it would be a 4-6 month wait for the eval and then longer for services, so I decided to do some research and what I read was that it's normal for children not to master the r and th sounds before 7 or 8, so now I feel kind of silly for mentioning things to our doctor, but then again, I don't want to neglect important intervention. Our dd has no problem with receptive or expressive vocabulary, just enunciation of some sounds. I understand almost all of what she says, but then again I'm with her all the time. So, anyone with experience, can you tell me if I should pursue the therapy and if so, is there a faster route to services? Thank you.

Hi,
I'm an SLP-turned homeschool mom, and we're off to church soon so I'll post more later. Just wanted to say never feel silly for expressing your concerns, and kudos to your pediatrician for not disregarding them. Your school district is required to provide a free screening, from which they decide if an evaluation is warranted, but that process looks different in every district, and I don't remember if there's a specified time frame, ie "within 6 weeks or 12 weeks" etc. The special education department of your school district (sometimes even the website) should be able to provide that info. More later...

My two youngest children had speech problems. I didnt receive speech therapy through Early Intervention,up to age 3 after that it goes through the school district . It was the best thing for both of them. Now at ages 8 and 6 you would never know they ever had a problem. By the time they both got to KIndergarten in ps, they didnt require any more speech. I am a big fan of speech therapy and getting help where it is needed.

I think one reason Dr. recommend the evaluation when there is a concern not a problem. Because it can take 6 months to get your tax dollars to work for you. I had Early intervention in NY. It took forever to get in. 5 month wait for evaluation, then 2 months of pussy footing around, then we got services... 5 of them! (PT, OT, Nutrition, Special Ed and Speech). When I wanted out of Early Intervention (And my life back) it was like pulling teeth. The Social worker who was supposed to be my advocate my helper etc. actually came and strip searched my child to make sure I wasn't pulling her due to abuse. This lady had a seriously bad attitude toward adoptive parents. (My Social worker for our adoption gave me feed back later that "Crazy Social" worker had been moved out of CPS due to excessive child removal. Early Intervention was so she could keep her job, but after my and a few other complaints she was forced into retirement).

So when we moved to TX I had a speech evaluation done privately. I then submitted that report to Easter seals (you get services on a sliding scale). I choose the private route b/c of the crazyness of that NY social worker (call it fear if you like). But I must admit working via a private organization was much easier and I had way more input and it felt "safer."

Those Early Intervention meetings where I had 5 people Specialists on one side of the table and My self alone on the other was always daunting. Where as working with Easter seals was fabulous.

Be ready to become your child's advocate
I have to admit Using professional Speech therapists is so good! They really know what they are doing. When we first moved to TX I did use a book I had but having that teacher I was accountable too and who really knew her stuff helped.

funny thing is once we got rid of the dairy in her diet they booted her out of speech as she improved 6 months in 6 weeks..

So if you don't want to go the PS eval route, you can look for an SLP in private practice who specializes in young kids, and there will likely be much less waiting time. Look one up online through ASHA (American Speech Language Hearing Association), or just in your phone book. If that doesn't work, try to speak to an actual SLP at your local hospital or State Early intervention department, they can probably give you the name of an SLP to call.

That being said, R and TH are usually not addressed formally in preschool because they may come in on their own sometime before age 8. Now TH is not very hard to teach (compared to other sounds), because you can look in the mirror and see that you need your tongue sticking out between your teeth just a little bit. A 3yo may have difficulty doing that instead of F, even in front of a mirror. Try it out in a playful way, but if it's frustrating, don't push it. Point out the sound when you read aloud to her, and if you can deliberately pick books with TH words to read to her, it will help her to hear the sounds often. If you have any phonics materials around, that's a good place to find pictures of TH words. And teach the two TH sounds separately (THing vs THat - you need your voice box turned on for the second one) Early phonics readers at the library are good as well. I did that with my son when we started to do phonics around 4.5yo with TH and L. He's improved a lot in 2 years, but we're still reminding him

Saying cown for crown is an example of "consonant cluster simplification", where one or more of the sounds in a blend is omitted, and that is very typical of 3yos. You can highlight the sound in "grrr" when playing and see if she can copy you. R is a challenging sound in general because it is made completely inside the mouth, so you can't see it, and it's made a bit differently depending on what vowels are nearby in the word. You have to be able to follow very specific directions to work on it, so it's usually only addressed informally until age 8 or so. Can she make an R at all, or does she just leave it out of blends?

My 3-almost 4yo dd sounds similar. Same errors, as well as leaving S out of blends and saying W for R and L. All "normal" errors for her age, but I am constantly translating for dh as well as strangers...I worked with her a bit on adding S back in to words like snake, snack, stick etc, but everything else has been informal: reading S books to her, repeating words that she mispronounces back to her correctly in conversation (ex."Dat's a reawy big fing" "Yes, THat is a huge THing, you're right!" Hope that helps some!

Tansy wrote:I think one reason Dr. recommend the evaluation when there is a concern not a problem. Because it can take 6 months to get your tax dollars to work for you. I had Early intervention in NY. It took forever to get in. 5 month wait for evaluation, then 2 months of pussy footing around, then we got services... 5 of them! (PT, OT, Nutrition, Special Ed and Speech). When I wanted out of Early Intervention (And my life back) it was like pulling teeth. The Social worker who was supposed to be my advocate my helper etc. actually came and strip searched my child to make sure I wasn't pulling her due to abuse. This lady had a seriously bad attitude toward adoptive parents. (My Social worker for our adoption gave me feed back later that "Crazy Social" worker had been moved out of CPS due to excessive child removal. Early Intervention was so she could keep her job, but after my and a few other complaints she was forced into retirement).

So when we moved to TX I had a speech evaluation done privately. I then submitted that report to Easter seals (you get services on a sliding scale). I choose the private route b/c of the crazyness of that NY social worker (call it fear if you like). But I must admit working via a private organization was much easier and I had way more input and it felt "safer."

Those Early Intervention meetings where I had 5 people Specialists on one side of the table and My self alone on the other was always daunting. Where as working with Easter seals was fabulous.

Be ready to become your child's advocate
I have to admit Using professional Speech therapists is so good! They really know what they are doing. When we first moved to TX I did use a book I had but having that teacher I was accountable too and who really knew her stuff helped.

funny thing is once we got rid of the dairy in her diet they booted her out of speech as she improved 6 months in 6 weeks..

Uh, oh ... I'm from NY (upstate), so now I'm scared. The last thing I need is that kind of pressure. I'm so sorry for what you went through, but thank you for sharing your experience.

krismoose wrote:Can she make an R at all, or does she just leave it out of blends?

My 3-almost 4yo dd sounds similar. Same errors, as well as leaving S out of blends and saying W for R and L. All "normal" errors for her age, but I am constantly translating for dh as well as strangers...I worked with her a bit on adding S back in to words like snake, snack, stick etc, but everything else has been informal: reading S books to her, repeating words that she mispronounces back to her correctly in conversation (ex."Dat's a reawy big fing" "Yes, THat is a huge THing, you're right!" Hope that helps some!

Thank you so much for your insight! Yes, she can make an r in many other words. She clearly says words like "really," "serious" & "car." When she says "train," I can hear some of the r. With other words, however, like "crown," I don't hear it at all. She doesn't seem to have any trouble with leaving s out of words. I just asked her to say "snack," "snake" and "stick" and she did fine; however, when I asked her to say "splash," she said "spash." We're using LHTH, so I know we'll continue working on sounds through that and we read a lot to our children, so hopefully that will help. I guess I'm very ambivalent on whether to pursue outside services or just to keep working with our dd at home.

P.S. Carrie, I know this is off track from talking about HOD programs, so if I should be posting on this here, just let me know!

P.S. Carrie, I know this is off track from talking about HOD programs, so if I should be posting on this here, just let me know!

Oops, I was so excited to talk about speech, I forgot it was off-topic PMing you to continue the discussion

yes NY has al sorts of rules... The state will be in your business. It is worth an evaluation no matter what.
I was from Upstate too
Just don't be as trusting as I was... as gentle as a dove but as sly as a fox.

My ds was in the Birth to 3 Connections program. It may be worthwhile to make an appointment at a "School for the Deaf", as they will do a tympanogram (spelling?) for free to check hearing. Fluid in the ear cannot always be detected through a normal doctor's visit without the special tympanogram machine/test. It's supposed to peak like a mountain. My ds's flat-lined in one ear, and barely peaked in the other. He had so much fluid he was not hearing much of anything and tested to have severe hearing loss in one ear, and moderate in the other. He had steroid shots, and one month later the happy mountain peaks were there when we went back for another test at the School for the Deaf. We had to wait about a month to get in, but it was free, and it helped my ds soooo much. One other thought, our ps speech teach gave private speech sessions too. If you like the school district's speech teacher, you could approach her about that? My ds now reads extremely well. He still on occasion mispronounces things, but I probably notice it just because I know the past history he has. Others never seem to notice. I just want to encourage you that speech services are worth it if they are needed!!!

In Christ,
Julie