On Tuesday, my daughter was diagnosed with a speech delay. Shes in the 4th percentile and while she's not severe, she is close to it. I'm at a loss, hence part of the reason for my failure post.

According to the speech pathologist, there aren't many options for us in this state. There is a speech therapist that could come to the house, but there is a wait list and it's currently closed. She might open it back up in Feb, but who knows how long the wait list is. She wouldn't even be coming to the house, but would be going to the CDC instead.

Currently, we're waiting for an audiology appointment to determine if she has a hearing problem and we're also waiting on an ENT appointment to determine what to do about her being tongue-tied.

Anyone with children with speech delays, have any advice as far as helping my daughter out at home, I'd appreciate it.

I have 2 kids in speech therapy right now. My daughter is 6 (7 in March) and she diagnosed as being mild to moderate. They decribed her speech as swiss cheese. That she has holes in her development. Some areas she is just above the severe level. She has gotten alot better ober the year she has been in therapy. We're waiting on her new IEP to be done to see really see how far she has come.

What we did with her is make flash cards with pictures and words to emphasize sounds and words she was having problems with. We also had sheets the had pictures and she would have to pick out the ones with s and say the word. Other sheets had pictures and she would have to tell me if the picture showed the object as over, under, beside, on, off, extra. We did stories in order for her to grasp why, when, where, who, what. They were very easy stories that made it easy for her to pick out the answer and then they gradually got more difficult. I got really lucky in that her school had started an extended day program that was all about repetition. They took what her teacher was teaching her and kept going over it with her. So instead of her staying for half the day like alot of kids she did her original Kindergarten class, went to lunch, and then went to her other class. She took speech therapy at school last year and does this year as well. She was in a special reading as well for half the year but has now tested out of it.

Now my son, Johnny, is 27 months and is at the level of a 17 month old. He goes to speech therapy once a week for 1 hour. The very first thing his therapist did was teach him sign language. He knows more, please, thank you, go, all done, and open. She does the animals with him too but she doesn't focus on them so he really hasn't picked up on them. She'll say a word and do the sign at the same time to help him put the 2 together. She has in the past few weeks really focused on getting him to imitate her when she says something. She'll touch her lips with her pinter finger and do sounds like ba, bo, be, ma, me, mo, moo, po, pa, pee, poo, etc. He is imitating her now and is starting to do it with me as well. She uses toys to help keep his attention and know what the word he is saying means.

I hope that helps but if you want or need anything else please feel free to ask.

Have you tried easter seals?

My son had delayed speech, he's autistic. He still has some problems, but he gets speech therapy through his school now. I've used flash cards, bubbles, blowing feathers across a table.

This site has some games, etc. I've used them. How old is your daughter?

http://www.speechteach.co.uk/p_resource/speech/speech_intro.htm

I love this site!

http://www.superduperinc.com

Have you checked into speech therapy outside of the Navy? We were told the wait was over 6 months just for an evaluation, let alone therapy. I said "fuck that" and found outside services. We got a referral from our doc and Riley can go once a week-paid for. Don't get discouraged yet. Riley went from saying about 5-10 words, and now we have lost count after 200, this all in a matter of months and after the ST teaching us how to work with him.

We had to put up all his toys, so he had to sign or ask for them. We had to stop asking him yes/no questions (instead of saying "is the sky blue, Riley?" say "what color is the sky" so they have to give an answer aside from yes/no. When we teach him what things are, we hold it up to our mouth so he can what we are doing, like hold a toy car up to our mouth and very clearly say "car". He taught us to teach him sign language and to speak the words too. Pretty soon Riley HAD to talk in order to get what he wanted.. some of his first words were "cookie" "car" "milk" and "cracker" :roflmao

I 100% know the feeling though, it's sickening and terrifying and confusing and depressing and just scary. If you EVER want to talk PM me, I know absolutely how you are feeling right now! :hugs :hugs :hugs

Have you tried easter seals?

My son had delayed speech, he's autistic. He still has some problems, but he gets speech therapy through his school now. I've used flash cards, bubbles, blowing feathers across a table.

This site has some games, etc. I've used them. How old is your daughter?

http://www.speechteach.co.uk/p_resource/speech/speech_intro.htm

I love this site!

http://www.superduperinc.com

I've never heard of Easter Seals, but I'll google it and check it out.

She's a month shy of being 4.

Thanks for the sites, I'll check them out.

Riley's mom gave GREAT advice! DS had speech (and other) delays and I remember all too well how overwhelming it was when we first started dealing with his diagnosis. We were fortunate enough to have a great PCM who was able to persevere and get us approved for speech therapy with a civillian provider which was 100% covered by TriCare - something to consider/look into (having the eval in hand is a great thing as it gives you a tool to use in the argument for the NEED for the therapy). We did appointments once a weeek for an hour but 99.9% of the actual "work" was done at home with methods such as what Rileysmom described.

Since she is nearing four she is aged out of the 0-3 programs each state has but she should be eligible to be identified for early intervention through the school system. Start working the phones and even if the person you reach isn't able to help ask them who to call next - eventually you will work your way through the network and find someone who can help.

If I was you I would go to the school district. They can set up speech therapy. When Breanna's dr. finally decided to refer her she was 4 and Tricare said they wouldn't approve it because she was to old. We went through the school district when she got to Kindergarten.

Good Luck.

Have you checked into speech therapy outside of the Navy? We were told the wait was over 6 months just for an evaluation, let alone therapy. I said "fuck that" and found outside services. We got a referral from our doc and Riley can go once a week-paid for. Don't get discouraged yet. Riley went from saying about 5-10 words, and now we have lost count after 200, this all in a matter of months and after the ST teaching us how to work with him.

We had to put up all his toys, so he had to sign or ask for them. We had to stop asking him yes/no questions (instead of saying "is the sky blue, Riley?" say "what color is the sky" so they have to give an answer aside from yes/no. When we teach him what things are, we hold it up to our mouth so he can what we are doing, like hold a toy car up to our mouth and very clearly say "car". He taught us to teach him sign language and to speak the words too. Pretty soon Riley HAD to talk in order to get what he wanted.. some of his first words were "cookie" "car" "milk" and "cracker" :roflmao

I 100% know the feeling though, it's sickening and terrifying and confusing and depressing and just scary. If you EVER want to talk PM me, I know absolutely how you are feeling right now! :hugs :hugs :hugs

Not yet. I was waiting to hear back from the speech therapist, so now that I have, I'm going to look into other options to see what I can do. Most places though, will be costing us a fortune. I think I'll be talking to her PCM about other options, when she has her next well-baby check up.

I forgot to mention in my OP that she can hold a conversation with people, but most can't understand a lot of what she says and I have to translate. It's her pronunciation that is not so great and to the speech pathologist, she thinks my daughter is from Boston.

Thanks, I'll take you up on your offer sometime. It helps to know I'm not alone and others have gone through this.

Since she is nearing four she is aged out of the 0-3 programs each state has but she should be eligible to be identified for early intervention through the school system. Start working the phones and even if the person you reach isn't able to help ask them who to call next - eventually you will work your way through the network and find someone who can help.

If I was you I would go to the school district. They can set up speech therapy. When Breanna's dr. finally decided to refer her she was 4 and Tricare said they wouldn't approve it because she was to old. We went through the school district when she got to Kindergarten.

Good Luck.

According to the speech pathologist, she's not eligible to go to the public schools here and use their system.

I'll call her and ask about it though.

According to the speech pathologist, she's not eligible to go to the public schools here and use their system.

I'll call her and ask about it though.

Huh. I wonder why that is.

My DS saw a speech therapist when he started school for pre-k...At the time we weren't aware of how bad it was...He was 4 at the time but was speaking and understanding me with the ability of a 2 year old. It was really scary at first but I can't believe how much improvement he has made.

Now he's in kindergarten and still goes to speech 2 times a week and also does tutoring 5 times a week for his reading...Good luck and if you ever wanna talk or vent you are more than welcome to pm me!!

this will NOT cost a fortune since she is 4 she will fall under the no-child left behind act-

all or most of the services will be free thru the school system, this is one of many reasons this was enacted.

the first place you need to call is the school district office in your town and ask for the special needs coordinator.

At age 4 you have done a great service to her by catching this early- after being properly diagnosed after ENT, and audiologist- you will have a better understanding of her issues- and within a yr of getting services you will hardly notice she had a delay.

good luck and THANK YOU for ensuring your childs health and well being!!!!

this will NOT cost a fortune since she is 4 she will fall under the no-child left behind act-

all or most of the services will be free thru the school system, this is one of many reasons this was enacted.

the first place you need to call is the school district office in your town and ask for the special needs coordinator.

At age 4 you have done a great service to her by catching this early- after being properly diagnosed after ENT, and audiologist- you will have a better understanding of her issues- and within a yr of getting services you will hardly notice she had a delay.

good luck and THANK YOU for ensuring your childs health and well being!!!!

I was told by the speech pathologist that she's not eligible for services from the school district. I'll give the school district office a call.

Thank you. I truly appreciate it. I just feel that I let her down because I knew something was wrong, but her original PCM wasn't concerned and wouldn't do anything for us.

Are you in Hawaii? If so, I would think Hawaii would still fall into the system of covering children through the school district. Once a child turns 3, you can have the school district test them.........catch here........a lot of times school district's standards are lower than on the civilian side. My son has been in speech therapy since he was 18 months. When we moved to Texas from WA state with and IEP.........the school district didn't want to mess with us but since he had an IEP, they had no choice. However, after two years in the school district speech therapy........he was dismissed due to being in the range for his age, even though he still needed the service. We started receiving therapy through Tricare. The Army hospital referred us out to the private sector. Since we are Tricare Prime........we have no co-pays. We pay nothing for it.
Talk with your primary doctor.........even if you receive care from the school system.........you can still receive service through Tricare at the same time.

On Tuesday, my daughter was diagnosed with a speech delay. Shes in the 4th percentile and while she's not severe, she is close to it. I'm at a loss, hence part of the reason for my failure post.

According to the speech pathologist, there aren't many options for us in this state. There is a speech therapist that could come to the house, but there is a wait list and it's currently closed. She might open it back up in Feb, but who knows how long the wait list is. She wouldn't even be coming to the house, but would be going to the CDC instead.

Currently, we're waiting for an audiology appointment to determine if she has a hearing problem and we're also waiting on an ENT appointment to determine what to do about her being tongue-tied.

Anyone with children with speech delays, have any advice as far as helping my daughter out at home, I'd appreciate it.

I really dont have any advice on anything else.....but I DID want to say that I am tongue tied. I had a slight speech problem as a child but talk normally now. I dont use my tongue to speak in the same ways that most people do and I use my mouth slightly different, but its so subtle no one even notices. It was only brought to mine and my parents attention when being screened for a speech delay.

They THOUGHT I had a speech delay when in fact I didnt, I just hadnt figured out how to use MY mouth yet.

I did have some slight dental problems due to it, but they were easily taken care of.

Point is, it COULD be more minor than u think :)

:hugs I hope everything works out!

:hugs No advice hun, but I'm sorry you're dealing with all this. The good thing is, as long as it's just speech, it'll end up being okay. So what if a little therapy is involved? Most of us have that point, and it's not usually for speech problems. :P

:hugs I bet it's crazy overwhelming though.

I'm in school right now for speech pathology...I wish I knew more right now that I could help.

The way the post sounded though as if the pathologist didn't care much??? Is there another place to go, or another person to get inormation about treatment in your area? If so I would definitely do that.

I'm sorry I'm not much help but I hope you can find the answers you're looking for, and soon.

Are you in Hawaii? If so, I would think Hawaii would still fall into the system of covering children through the school district. Once a child turns 3, you can have the school district test them.........catch here........a lot of times school district's standards are lower than on the civilian side. My son has been in speech therapy since he was 18 months. When we moved to Texas from WA state with and IEP.........the school district didn't want to mess with us but since he had an IEP, they had no choice. However, after two years in the school district speech therapy........he was dismissed due to being in the range for his age, even though he still needed the service. We started receiving therapy through Tricare. The Army hospital referred us out to the private sector. Since we are Tricare Prime........we have no co-pays. We pay nothing for it.
Talk with your primary doctor.........even if you receive care from the school system.........you can still receive service through Tricare at the same time.

Yeah I am.

I'm going to be calling the school district on Monday to see what I can do through them.

I really dont have any advice on anything else.....but I DID want to say that I am tongue tied. I had a slight speech problem as a child but talk normally now. I dont use my tongue to speak in the same ways that most people do and I use my mouth slightly different, but its so subtle no one even notices. It was only brought to mine and my parents attention when being screened for a speech delay.

They THOUGHT I had a speech delay when in fact I didnt, I just hadnt figured out how to use MY mouth yet.

I did have some slight dental problems due to it, but they were easily taken care of.

Point is, it COULD be more minor than u think :)

:hugs I hope everything works out!

Thanks. :)

My mom is tongue tied too but I haven't really talked to her lately to ask if she had speech problems when she was younger.

I'm in school right now for speech pathology...I wish I knew more right now that I could help.

The way the post sounded though as if the pathologist didn't care much??? Is there another place to go, or another person to get inormation about treatment in your area? If so I would definitely do that.

I'm sorry I'm not much help but I hope you can find the answers you're looking for, and soon.

About the pathologist, :dunno.

I'm going to call the school district on Monday and see if we can go that route, but I'm also going to be talking to my daughters PCM to see what she has to say.

Thanks.

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who responded. It has definitely lifted my spirits and I'll be making a bunch of calls on Monday once I get home from class.

Last night I was working with my daughter to pronounce words and I noticed if I broke a word down to syllables, she could pronounce it better. I'm definitely going to try some of the things you ladies have suggested.

I feel much better about this than before. So thanks again. :)

I am glad your spirits are lifting Jenn! I hope you can get her the help she deserves :)

My little brother had a speech delay when he was around 5 I think. He went though a program at the local university with students who where studying to be speech pathologists. I dont know if there is anything like that near you. and I dont know how much it cost. I know it wasnt much if anything cause we where not very well off. Im sure you can find something to help her. Good Luck.

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who responded. It has definitely lifted my spirits and I'll be making a bunch of calls on Monday once I get home from class.

Last night I was working with my daughter to pronounce words and I noticed if I broke a word down to syllables, she could pronounce it better. I'm definitely going to try some of the things you ladies have suggested.

I feel much better about this than before. So thanks again. :)

Our speech therapist taught us that children learn speech bit by bit, so each addition is a new goal.

Like

"HI" is consanant, vowel (C, V)
something like CAT is more complicated, b/c it's C,V,C

So he taught us to start with CV, VC and go from there. It really helped him, it's like we started teaching him things he could learn, and it just grew from there. Now we are working on CVC and CVCV, so it's very helpful to us!

Also, he taught that just because Riley can pronounce a letter, say "s" for example, doesn't mean he can do it at either end of a word. Like he might know how to do "sit" but he can't do "yes", as it is two different types of pronounciations (on starting with s, the other ending with s).

Hope that makes sense, but all these little things really added up for us!

Keep your chin up, we're all here for you! :hugs :hugs :hugs

Hey Jen!!!

Ethan's in speech therapy now and has been for the past 3 months. Erika and a few others have notice significant advances in his speech and he only gets the therapy once a week for 45 minutes.

Ethan had to go to audiology too to rule out hearing loss. He passed with flying colors.

I'm so sorry that Hawaii is LACKING in the developmental delay areas. That's AWFUL!!! Try contacting Easter Seals of Hawaii!!!: http://hawaii.easterseals.com/site/PageServer?pagename=HIDR_early_intervention

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who responded. It has definitely lifted my spirits and I'll be making a bunch of calls on Monday once I get home from class.

Last night I was working with my daughter to pronounce words and I noticed if I broke a word down to syllables, she could pronounce it better. I'm definitely going to try some of the things you ladies have suggested.

I feel much better about this than before. So thanks again. :)

Our speech therapist taught us that children learn speech bit by bit, so each addition is a new goal.

Like

"HI" is consanant, vowel (C, V)
something like CAT is more complicated, b/c it's C,V,C

So he taught us to start with CV, VC and go from there. It really helped him, it's like we started teaching him things he could learn, and it just grew from there. Now we are working on CVC and CVCV, so it's very helpful to us!

Also, he taught that just because Riley can pronounce a letter, say "s" for example, doesn't mean he can do it at either end of a word. Like he might know how to do "sit" but he can't do "yes", as it is two different types of pronounciations (on starting with s, the other ending with s).

Hope that makes sense, but all these little things really added up for us!

Keep your chin up, we're all here for you! :hugs :hugs :hugs

:yes :yes :yes

Ethan's speech therapist is working with him to pronounce each syllable bit by bit. She's not worried about that he cannot say the whole entire work. Making sure they're attempting at the word, broken up, is a good step!!!
For instance, Ethan does "puh-zzles" sometimes during his sessions. They're shape puzzles. Rene(speech therapist) pronounces words like: Tri-a-Guh-le, Sir-KUHLE,

She puts more emphasis on the harder sounding syllables. For "guh," Rene puts Ethan's hand up to her vocal cords to feel where the sound should be coming from.

Jen...feel free to YIM, call, or text me anytime!!!