Private speech and occupational therapies?

[Anonymous]

I feel like we are being jerked around by strong start so I’m considering going ahead and signing up for some private therapies. Can someone tell me it’s definitely worth it? I just need a morale boost to get over the prices. Any recs to pursue or stay away from? Thanks in advance

[Anonymous]

Absolutely worth it but I’m not sure about the prices. Could you get a diagnosis of some sort? Insurance and grants are available for some therapies for a copay.

If money is not an issue and you are in MoCo, TLC (affiliated with the Katherine T. Thomas school) was life changing for our child. Absolutely it makes a difference.

[Anonymous]

It’s worth it, but you have to give it time. Like 6 months to a year at least. We’ve used Excpetional Children’s Center in the past for speech and OT.

[Anonymous]

An EIBI home program with SLP/OT supplementation is usually worth it prior to age 5, definitely worth it prior to age 3 especially if you can get it prior to the initial IEP.

[Anonymous]

It's worth it. I was not impressed with the school system at all. OT was covered by insurance and I found someone who took our insurance. ST wasn't initially, but I kept appealing until they probably decided it was cheaper to reimburse me some for out of network than it was to keep dealing with my calls and documenting.

Also, with private, if you don't like them, you switch to someone else and if you take someone out of network, it's usually without waitlist. In the school system it can be harder to switch and sometimes there is only one person.

I assume Strong Start is the early intervention program? We had some OK interventionists who came to our home. One was young and often late or would cancel last minute, but I do think she was helpful. Another was older and trying to use it to create her own private practice. We stopped after one session because our toddler hated her, but it didn't stop her from first emailing, then when we blocked her, calling to drum up business for her private practice.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I stressed about the cost of OT at first but it helped my child so much. We are lucky that our insurance reimburses most of the cost of out of network providers and those are easier to find. However there are some providers that take insurance. I can say for us I have no question that intervening aggressively early made a big difference.

Where are you located? One thing we are grateful for is getting in with a provider near our home

[Anonymous]

For my kids it was life changing. I am not exaggerating. DS with CAS started with the county at 20 months. We added private around 24 months. I sat in on all sessions initially, county and private, and what they did was very different. Private services were more customized and targeted. My other DS had phonological disorder and significant fine motor issues and made great improvement in private therapy. He started at school in K but he only got group once a week and it wasn’t helpful.

[Anonymous]

Agreed with all the above replies, private therapy truly made the difference for my DS especially in self regulation skills and gross motor development which isn't really addressed in school OT. My DS went to Fitness for Health for OT and National Therapy Center for speech, I felt both in conjunction really helped my child make progress.

[Anonymous]

We shopped around as some providers worked with our insurance and others didn’t. My DD did private OT and speech. She started both school based and private speech at age 4. Due to some changes we stopped somewhere around age 4.5 with the private speech and her daycare provider pretty quickly said she was noticing a lot less progress. So we resumed private speech. Well worth it, BUT it was *only* the $30 copay (ie $60 / week). Still expensive to do for a few years but not the same as paying out of pocket. Our OT maxed out at something like 40 sessions a year. Between our vacations and the provider’s vacations we were able to make it work.

[Anonymous]

We have had some success but slowly with st, but ot did seem to help with some basics that my dd was behind in. We had a horrible experience with Floortime, so I'd stay away from them. For speech we've been very happy with Owls Therapy (the therapists come to you but it's the same price as what I was finding in centers). We are paying out of pocket b/c our insurance only covered a couple of options, and they all had terrible reviews. I did try one of them, and they wanted my dd to sit in a seat that looked like a carseat and restrained her while they worked on st. She flipped out at the idea of it and then wouldn't participate at all. We never went back there. For a young child, I'd see if the therapy is play based. My dd definitely responded better when she just thought she was playing games or playing with manipulatives w/ the therapist, vs sitting at a desk with no props.

[Anonymous]

How is Pediatric Development Center?

[Anonymous]

Private therapies are 100% worth it!

[Anonymous]

I thought OT was a waste of time but ST with the right therapist was well worth it (it took a few tries to get the right fit and stayed with them for years). No regrets.

[Anonymous]

How did you know when to stop ST with private?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How did you know when to stop ST with private?

Your child has improved. Our developmental ped suggested stopping, I said no, eventually the ST said it was time.

I'd rather regret doing it, than regret not doing it.