Can I just say that I’ve had a love-hate relationship with speech therapy since my daughter was able to start it just under a year and a half ago? Today I’m going to share exactly why that is, and why I still completely recommend getting your child evaluated and services if they qualify.

Preschool Services for My Child

My daughter was born just before the pandemic and turned 6 months old right as it was starting. My husband was considered essential, so he was working throughout that period. I think this led us to trying to be excessively careful. As K was learning to speak, we realized that she was difficult to understand. Although it could’ve just been that I was hard of hearing, her doctor agreed that her articulation was delayed. I think the doctor had suggested early intervention, but the pandemic was still going strong and we didn’t want to allow anyone unfamiliar into our home, so we waited. When K turned 4, the doctor again gave us information, but this time it was about options through the local school district or through the hospital. I contacted the district and we started the process around September 2023.

The school district preschool evaluation was free of charge, so when given the option of just evaluating her speech or evaluating everything, we chose everything. K had three evaluations in October (educational, speech, and social history and psychological). She did well everywhere except her speech. Her articulation was at the 0.2 percentile for her age. We chose an agency to provide the speech therapy and I was told I’d have to bring her there for each session. Through some miscommunication and mistakes on their end, she didn’t start having speech therapy until January 2024 where it was moved into the home (super convenient!). Based on the delay, the district approved additional speech therapy over the summer, so K met with her preschool speech and language pathologist (SLP) for around 8 full months.

Although K usually enjoyed speech therapy at age 4, I think it was because they played a lot of games and she loved the attention. I needed to be there for every session (unless O was napping on me, at which point my hubby oversaw the session). We didn’t necessarily speak during the session, unless we were “translating” what K said (since we understood her better than the SLP did) or redirecting her when she got too silly.

Elementary Services

The big change came when she started kindergarten and transitioned to school services. Yet again there was miscommunication and mistakes on their end, so they forgot about K’s speech therapy (I spoke to them 2 weeks before school started to ask what to expect, but somehow between then and the school year starting, they lost her name on their list). When I finally spoke with someone about scheduling, we were given the option of:

• Different times to meet on two consecutive days in a six day period
• Group speech therapy on two days in a six day period
• The same time to meet on nonconsecutive days in a six day period… but early morning at the middle school

Even though it meant meeting at the middle school, we chose the third option since it was a lot less confusing. Her new SLP had previously worked with preschool and kindergarten-aged kids and was using those methods in a modified way with the middle schoolers. I met him ahead of time and stayed in the room for the first session. His methods were so different from her previous SLP and I could tell that they’d be so much more effective for K. She would be getting her entire body involved in articulation. He also provided me with resources and materials so that I could help her with her articulation at home.

Although the one report he shared had indicated she was still delayed, come February he was asking about having her evaluated again because she seemed to be ahead of the game. We agreed to the new evaluation in April when he told us that she would most likely end speech therapy after her annual meeting due to his progress report, whether or not she had the evaluation. The purpose of the evaluation would be to guide him in any future sessions so he could better help her as much as he could… and she aced it. A month later, she had her annual meeting and they said she’ll be declassified at the end of the school year. So she’ll be done with (and “graduating” from) speech therapy within the next few weeks or by the end of the school year.

Despite All of the Challenges

Yes. There were challenges and exasperations and frustrations in getting K services, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Each challenge was small compared to the challenges K faced in getting people to understand her. Each exasperation and frustration was small and short-lived compared to those that K felt when she tried to communicate and wasn’t understood. Speech therapy allowed my daughter to better communicate with the world and be a happier child.

Before speech therapy, I had noticed that her resilience was waning. Until she was 4-ish, she would usually repeat a misunderstood word many times and had adapted to try to use other words to explain what she meant. But she got to a point where her frustrations grew. She would say the word one or two extra times before saying “nothing” and trying to change the subject. I could see that she was disappointed and would try to bring back her resilience. I’d apologize for not understanding. I even worked on and got hearing aids finally because it was so important to me to reduce anything extra that prevented me from understanding her.

Get the Help

Just as you’d get your child glasses if they had trouble seeing, if you suspect your child might have a delay or need services, I truly recommend that you do it. Take a chance on the school district, see if there are ways to get the services through your insurance, or you could go through Early Intervention for smaller children. Fun fact: homeschooling is completely separate from special education services. Yes, I had to register my daughter for the district to receive the services, but I was able to homeschool anyway. (If you are not keen on registering your child or providing that kind of information to the district, check with your insurance or find self-pay options… or it may work differently in your district/state anyway.) Once K’s done with the services, we’ll continue to homeschool. Most importantly, when she’s done with the services, it will be because she’s had much improvement and will be less frustrated and happier long-term. Seeking services when needed is a way to put our children’s needs first, which is why most of us choose to homeschool anyway.