Early intervention.. Is it necessary? Does it really work?
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Anonymous
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I think there's plenty of evidence for early intervention for kids known to be at risk, such as those with cerebral palsy, down syndrome, very preterm, birth injury, etc.
You'll find much less evidence to support early intervention for kids who are merely behind on some skills. I have a kid who is on the lower end of some skills, and we chose to wait to get specialized services until it came closer to the time when he really needed those skills, and when we had some other crucial components arranged that were more important than starting OT right away. So far it seems to be working well. Time/money/insurance/patience are not limitless, and sometimes "wait and see" can be prudent, as long as you're informed about what's going on. That said, if your ped referred you to EI and you qualified, seems like you're already on a road you ought to travel down for a while. Have you circled back to your pediatrician to discuss this? An experienced ped ought to be able to put this in perspective for you, and recommend any additional referrals beyond EI if he/she has any cause for concern. |
Anonymous
It varies by state. |
Anonymous
Doesn't your insurance cover most of that? |
Anonymous
It's not free, but the convenience of having someone come to our house was amazing. We only paid a $15 co-pay, so $60/month for weekly appointments. |
Anonymous
This. In Montgomery County it's free. We had 4 months of speech therapy for our son, from 19 to 23 months. Therapy once a week (though in practice it wound up being more like once every other week due to everyone's schedules.) It helped tremendously. He went from being essentially non-verbal to speaking at a normal 2 year old level. Would he have caught up anyway? Sure, maybe. But maybe not. So we're very glad he did it. And it was all free to us. If there's no cost or minimal cost, I would absolutely do it. If there is a cost, I would do it if you can afford it. Put it this way -- if you pay some money and she catches up, all is good. If you don't pay the money and she doesn't catch up, you may be looking at more expensive therapies down the road. |
Anonymous
| In DC it's free and I found the EI therapists as good as private therapists, better in some cases. |
Anonymous
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OP here. Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts. Yes, it's free at Montgomery County. I am hesitant (not saying no) just because I wasn't sure if it's necessary, if I'm overreacting or being impatient. Sort of a wait and see approach as one of the PPs suggested.
We are first time parents and didn't even know programs like this exist for babies with no medical condition. After our 9 months check up and assessment, her pediatrician suggested this program. Believe it or not, it took 3 weeks to set up this assessment appointment. This is in respond to the pp who said we should have started this a while ago. We are going to try this as it is free and were told we can stop anytime. Anyone other success stories from EI? |
Anonymous
Glad you're going to give it a try. Especially if it is free and you pediatrician recommended it, it is absolutely worthwhile. Why would you not? There is literally no drawback. My son needed speech therapy, and went from a pretty moderate delay with articulation problems to on-target now for entering kindergarten next fall. I'm so glad we did it. I could tell very early that he wasn't progressing with speech very well - he started out strong, and then stopped progressing at all. Whenever I would mention it to my husband, baby's grandparents, even pediatrician, they all thought I was overreacting. As he got older it finally became apparent enough that my husband agreed with requesting an assessment, which did show moderate delay at that point. Nobody could understand him but us, and even we couldn't understand much. I'm so glad we did it, because it also taught us how to help him. It's not just working with the baby when they come, it's teaching you to work with the baby all of the rest of the time in order to see actual improvement. If the parents aren't invested and don't try, then the interventions are far less likely to be helpful. Our experience has been great, and I'm so glad we did it. |
Anonymous
| I'm the PP whose child did speech with a great outcome - I meant to mention, it was not free for us, was $60/session each week (which was not small change in our budget), and it was still 100% worth it. |
Anonymous
Please show the research. |
Anonymous
I live in Montgomery county. For us, speech therapy through the infants and toddlers program is free - regardless of your income or health insurance status. Why not do it? |
Anonymous
We're going through some difficulties with the referral. HMO. Once we get it straightened out it should be covered because his delay has a medical cause (conductive hearing loss due chronic fluid in the ears). If it were just a delay without a medical reason, it wouldn't be covered. |
Anonymous
Op if people who are trained in this stuff found her eligible you clearly aren't being over reactive or impatient. If she qualifies, then she needs it. Period. You could take the risk of not doing it and see how long it takes her to catch up but why? Why make her wait til 15 months to learn how to feed herself when she could be doing it at 10 months? You also run the risk of losing lots of time addressing stuff. Being in EI means if more pervasive issues are present they will be able to catch them and address them. If you keep her out of EI, you lose that. The thing with kids with delays is it's impossible to know how it'll shake out. It could be just late blooming and they're totally fine or it could be larger issues that indicate serious delays they will be persistently dealing with throughout childhood. You can hope it's the first but would feel terrible if it were the second and you had wasted valuable time waiting to see. |
Anonymous
| We went through infants and toddlers with DC2 who had a significant motor delay as 3 month old. She was discharged from the program a year later on target. Had we not addressed the issue, there would have been lasting sequelae. |
Anonymous
| I would definitely do it for all reasons stated above. My son had speech therapy through our version of EI (also free, aka included in our tax bill) for close to two years and and has been fine since discharged at 4. My son thought the speech therapist was a grown up play date for him plus i learned a lot of strategies. Honestly, I think he probably would have been fine but it could have taken longer. Why wait if you don't need to? |