Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Speech Therapy - a little rant

ODS has speech issues; he had a severe speech delay which led to problems with articulation.   When we started speech therapy he was diagnosed with verbal apraxia.

We found a fantastic SLP, privately and just love her.  We see her weekly (mostly, sometimes due to schedules a few weeks happen between appointments, but not normally). We started to notice improvements immediately and he has come SO far since we started seeing her 18 months ago.

Anyone who has a child with speech issues knows that speech therapy is great, but is NOT an overnight fix.  It takes a long time to teach/train the brain/mouth/tongue what you want it to do.  It can be a very frustrating process for children (and sometimes for parents also)  It is very easy for us to forget that they don't know HOW to say it properly.  I find myself getting frustrated sometimes (never at him, ever - just inside to myself) that he is saying the same word (which I KNOW he can say properly, but reverting back to his "old" way because it is easier)

Something that really bugs me - is how the funding is allocated to medical. I get that it is medical - and that is fine. BUT - kids with speech issues end up (often) falling behind in learning.  Reading especially. How can you learn properly when you can't communicate?  I REALLY wish that funding could also be added to education so that kids could receive the therapy they need at school.

Mr. J has a speech therapist (through CCAC) come into the school every 2 weeks, and while it is great, if we were not going the private route I can only imagine how much further behind he would be. The SLP that comes through CCAC only works on speech, not language. Our private SLP has started to go the language route because he is REALLY behind in it (when I say language, I don't mean vocabulary - but getting confused with she/her he/him, they/them etc)

Vent is over - but I would love to know if you have dealt with speech therapy with your kids - was it a long process?

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