Speech therapy for 6yo

[tny915]

DD1 had a speech evaluation yesterday. For as long as I can remember, she has had trouble with "th", pronouncing it as "st", so my primary reason for getting her evaluated was to help with this one sound. The therapist heard "s" and "z" problems I never noticed. The therapist noticed DD had "r" trouble as well, but wasn't concerned and said that sound would develop later. We're considering moving forward with weekly therapy focusing on "s", "z", and "th".

What should I be looking for in a speech therapist, and what will DD be doing in weekly sessions? The therapist we met with was nice enough, but I didn't see a huge connection between she and DD, though it really was just 15 minutes. I think it would be tricky trying to meet with other therapists in the practice though, because it seems we've been assigned to this one.

Also, am I jumping the gun on this or is 6.5 an appropriate age to get these sounds worked on?

[hellokitty]

Did you have a speech eval done at the school? I think that the school will provide speech therapy, using their ST if they feel that your child needs it. Or you can go privately with your own insurance. Sometimes the issue is that your child needs, "mild" ST and the school won't cover it b/c it's not severe enough. Not sure what your situation is, whether they feel that your dd needs ST or that you feel that she needs ST.

My oldest is also 6 yrs old and was flagged at at the end of preschool for needing ST when he was 5 yrs old. Well, I had the ST at his elementary school that he was going to be entering last yr (kindergarten) do an eval on him and there were a few problem areas, BUT she said that he had until he was 7 or 8 yrs old to resolve those particular sounds. So, she would just keep an eye on him. She did his K speech eval and he did not get flagged. She gave me a very nice chart of the sounds and what age the child should be able to say those sounds. I can't find it, and I kind of looked online the the ones online aren't as easy to read as the one our ST at our school gave me. It was kind of like this... but more in a graph form, but I found it very helpful and wished that our ped would have given us something like that when he was a toddler, so I wasn't freaking out so much about his speech.

http://members.tripod.com/Caroline_Bowen/Table4.htm

[HIU8]

DS will be 6 in November. Speech therapy will occur at school (it's part of their program). He will get 1 hour a week of group speech therapy. In addition, we will be doing private speech therapy. DS is a tongue thruster. He can't pronounce several sounds as well. Doesn't surprise me since my sibs and I all underwent private speech therapy for tongue thrusting. I even had to relearn how to swallow (and I was 15 at the time).

[mytwosons]

We did maybe 6-8 weekly sessions at about the same age to deal with /th/. We already knew the ST from therapy when he was younger, though.

She showed him how it should look in a mirror and got him to produce the sound. Then it was practice using the sound in the beginning of a single, simple word with lots of repetition. Homework was saying the 10 different words she gave us 10x each day. Then the /th/ sound moved to the end of the word, then middle, then in harder word combinations. The ST explained that it was showing them how to produce the sound and then lots of repetition until it was second nature.

[tny915]

Is school-provided speech therapy done in private schools or just in public? I wasn't aware that schools offer this. DD goes to private. In K, the school had a private ST come in and give those who wanted it an eval for a small fee, but it didn't sound like this would lead to any school supported speech therapy sessions. We got a letter with the eval results and the phone number of the ST if we chose to pursue things with her at her practice.

Our ped gave us a referral at DD's 6 year checkup, but the ST has said that our insurance reimbursement is not likely, though she's happy to submit the claims to see what insurance does.

We'll give weekly therapy a try to see how things progress. Thanks everyone for the feedback! And hellokitty, thanks for the sounds chart!

[niccig]

Is school-provided speech therapy done in private schools or just in public? I wasn't aware that schools offer this. DD goes to private. In K, the school had a private ST come in and give those who wanted it an eval for a small fee, but it didn't sound like this would lead to any school supported speech therapy sessions. We got a letter with the eval results and the phone number of the ST if we chose to pursue things with her at her practice.

Our ped gave us a referral at DD's 6 year checkup, but the ST has said that our insurance reimbursement is not likely, though she's happy to submit the claims to see what insurance does.

We'll give weekly therapy a try to see how things progress. Thanks everyone for the feedback! And hellokitty, thanks for the sounds chart!

We're in the same boat. Private school but might need Speech Therapy.

We requested an evaluation from the school district on Dr. advice as the evaluation is free, but it is taking MONTHS to set up. I spoke with the SLP that will be doing the evaluation, and she said that services will only be provided if it affects learning. She told me she would tell me if he needed therapy even though the school district won't pay. I think this will happen with DS - there's an issue but not severe enough for the school district to cover it. And then we're private school in another district, so not sure if we'll even be eligible for the school district services.

I wanted the evaluation as the SLP at our local school is very good and thought it would be a good basis to go from. BUT, as it's been months and paperwork and no evaluation yet, we probably should have just gone to a private SLP, as I do think that's where we will end up.

As for insurance covering it, our Dr. said most insurance is only for medical reasons. I'm expecting we will be OOP for any therapy - but as DS can get frustrated if we don't understand, it'll be worth it..

[mytwosons]

We are public school but also used private ST since it was a must faster fix than the school ST could do. His school ST was in a group setting for 45 1x/wk. IMO, one-on-one is much faster for something like articulation.

[mytwosons]

Our ped gave us a referral at DD's 6 year checkup, but the ST has said that our insurance reimbursement is not likely, though she's happy to submit the claims to see what insurance does.

We'll give weekly therapy a try to see how things progress. Thanks everyone for the feedback! And hellokitty, thanks for the sounds chart!

Insurance covered an eval for us years ago. Nothing since. The ST who we received a referral for worked out of a hospital and was $240/hr. Local group practices (not affiliated w/a hospital but did ST, OT, etc.) charged $120. We found a highly respected and sought after ST who worked out of her home for $80/hr. It might be worth it for you to look around at all your options.