How much improvement should I expect from speech therapy?

[Anonymous]

OP, where do you live? We do ABA as well, and she incorporates our speech HW. Son is 5. I hear you on the therapy overload.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is 6 - they have been working on expressive language. And apparently his receptive is not great. It was not initially tested in the first evaluation because my main concern at the time was expressive. If receptive is bad, I'm assuming that will make anything and everything that much more difficult for him.

Any speech therapist who just evaluates expressive language without evaluating receptive language for an initial evaluation is incompetent. Knowing a child's receptive language is crucial! There is no excuse considering he was 5 or 6 years old during the initial evaluation. Get another therapist ASAP.

+1 If you wait till 6 for therapy, its helpful but a bit late in the game. Get a new therapist if they did not do a good assessment. Poor receptive is different than expressive. Some kids have one, some both.

This doesn't sound like the therapist's fault--it sounds more like mom was being overly directive without a lot knowledge.

Actually I did ask her why she didn't test for receptive at the time and she said we should focus on one aspect...or something like that. Please don't be mean, I'm trying the best I can. I didn't come here to get shit on.

[Anonymous]

Op, I love our SLP. She is at Childrens Speech and Language Services in Falls Church and all of the providers are very very good there. there is a wait list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, I love our SLP. She is at Childrens Speech and Language Services in Falls Church and all of the providers are very very good there. there is a wait list.

We like the Springfield location too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is 6 - they have been working on expressive language. And apparently his receptive is not great. It was not initially tested in the first evaluation because my main concern at the time was expressive. If receptive is bad, I'm assuming that will make anything and everything that much more difficult for him.

Any speech therapist who just evaluates expressive language without evaluating receptive language for an initial evaluation is incompetent. Knowing a child's receptive language is crucial! There is no excuse considering he was 5 or 6 years old during the initial evaluation. Get another therapist ASAP.

+1 If you wait till 6 for therapy, its helpful but a bit late in the game. Get a new therapist if they did not do a good assessment. Poor receptive is different than expressive. Some kids have one, some both.

This doesn't sound like the therapist's fault--it sounds more like mom was being overly directive without a lot knowledge.

That's not fair at all. Lack of expressive language is the most obvious -- it's incumbent on the speech therapist to do all the testing necessary, even if a parent (who is not an expert in development or language acquisition) has only noticed problems in one domain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is 6 - they have been working on expressive language. And apparently his receptive is not great. It was not initially tested in the first evaluation because my main concern at the time was expressive. If receptive is bad, I'm assuming that will make anything and everything that much more difficult for him.

Any speech therapist who just evaluates expressive language without evaluating receptive language for an initial evaluation is incompetent. Knowing a child's receptive language is crucial! There is no excuse considering he was 5 or 6 years old during the initial evaluation. Get another therapist ASAP.

+1 If you wait till 6 for therapy, its helpful but a bit late in the game. Get a new therapist if they did not do a good assessment. Poor receptive is different than expressive. Some kids have one, some both.

This doesn't sound like the therapist's fault--it sounds more like mom was being overly directive without a lot knowledge.

That's not fair at all. Lack of expressive language is the most obvious -- it's incumbent on the speech therapist to do all the testing necessary, even if a parent (who is not an expert in development or language acquisition) has only noticed problems in one domain.

+1. Not mom's fault at all. This therapist sounds terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is 6 - they have been working on expressive language. And apparently his receptive is not great. It was not initially tested in the first evaluation because my main concern at the time was expressive. If receptive is bad, I'm assuming that will make anything and everything that much more difficult for him.

Any speech therapist who just evaluates expressive language without evaluating receptive language for an initial evaluation is incompetent. Knowing a child's receptive language is crucial! There is no excuse considering he was 5 or 6 years old during the initial evaluation. Get another therapist ASAP.

+1 If you wait till 6 for therapy, its helpful but a bit late in the game. Get a new therapist if they did not do a good assessment. Poor receptive is different than expressive. Some kids have one, some both.

This doesn't sound like the therapist's fault--it sounds more like mom was being overly directive without a lot knowledge.

That's not fair at all. Lack of expressive language is the most obvious -- it's incumbent on the speech therapist to do all the testing necessary, even if a parent (who is not an expert in development or language acquisition) has only noticed problems in one domain.

+1. Not mom's fault at all. This therapist sounds terrible.

As a speech pathologist I'm extremely concerned about everything I've heard about them. OP, please take your child to a new practice. This person doesn't seem to be serving your family's best interests and they certainly aren't following best practices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is 6 - they have been working on expressive language. And apparently his receptive is not great. It was not initially tested in the first evaluation because my main concern at the time was expressive. If receptive is bad, I'm assuming that will make anything and everything that much more difficult for him.

Any speech therapist who just evaluates expressive language without evaluating receptive language for an initial evaluation is incompetent. Knowing a child's receptive language is crucial! There is no excuse considering he was 5 or 6 years old during the initial evaluation. Get another therapist ASAP.

+1 If you wait till 6 for therapy, its helpful but a bit late in the game. Get a new therapist if they did not do a good assessment. Poor receptive is different than expressive. Some kids have one, some both.

This doesn't sound like the therapist's fault--it sounds more like mom was being overly directive without a lot knowledge.

Actually I did ask her why she didn't test for receptive at the time and she said we should focus on one aspect...or something like that. Please don't be mean, I'm trying the best I can. I didn't come here to get shit on.

SLP here. This is truly bizarre. At the bare minimum she should have done a comprehensive language measure like the CASL, TOLD-P4, or CELF-5 for an initial intake. To avoid doing any test that gave her insight into receptive language is actually quite a feat! I'm not even sure how I'd go about that. I've done testing where I've almost exclusively assessed receptive language and not touched much on expressive, usually in kids who are non-verbal or almost completely unintelligible, but never the reverse.

And you should not have been expected to know this. Parents tell me what they think is wrong all the time, and that's valuable information that I certainly take into account (maybe it would trigger me to do some supplemental tests that I might not have otherwise based on their highlighted areas of concern), but ultimately I'm the one with the training who's supposed to do a comprehensive assessment and figure out what's going on with their child, not them.

I would try a new therapist, and maybe a new comprehensive assessment. Make sure you bring all the old ones with you so they don't accidentally repeat anything too soon and invalidate the results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is 6 - they have been working on expressive language. And apparently his receptive is not great. It was not initially tested in the first evaluation because my main concern at the time was expressive. If receptive is bad, I'm assuming that will make anything and everything that much more difficult for him.

Any speech therapist who just evaluates expressive language without evaluating receptive language for an initial evaluation is incompetent. Knowing a child's receptive language is crucial! There is no excuse considering he was 5 or 6 years old during the initial evaluation. Get another therapist ASAP.

+100

[Anonymous]

If it's near enough for you, I can recommend the Hearing and Speech Clinic on the University of Maryland campus at College Park.

https://hesp.umd.edu/content/about-hearing-and-speech-clinic

Anecdote:
My 2 year old son's language was not developing normally after suffering chronic ear infections and middle ear fluid since babyhood. After we had ear tubes placed to correct his hearing deficit, we knew he still needed speech therapy.

The first therapist we tried was basically phoning it in. Insurance would only pay for 30 minutes a week and we didn't see any improvement. This therapist didn't give us any useful feedback, no exercises at home, wouldn't let us observe and had no discernible therapy plan.

We decided to bite the bullet and self-pay for the low-cost program at UMD's speech clinic. It's low cost ($50/hr) because the therapy is conducted by UMD graduate students under the supervision of clinical staff instructors. And the quality is exceptional - the students our son worked with really gave it their all, with fresh ideas and enthusiasm, every session. I was impressed.

I liked UMD's clinic because the therapy rooms have one-way windows through which parents (and instructors) can observe the therapists interact with the children. I always got a great deal out of seeing how my son responded to the techniques, and learned how to do the exercises myself with him at home, plus it was reassuring to see that he enjoyed it and it was high-quality care.

And it worked, too. Within one year of therapy at two sessions of an hour per week, my now-three year old had fully caught up with his peers. The team conducted a thorough test of this, and after determining he didn't need therapy any more, they 'graduated' him and he went to preschool with no issues, expressive or receptive.

I understand that fees can be adjusted on a means-based sliding scale. They do not bill insurance but will provide documents for self-pay reimbursement.

It's amazing what a good speech therapy team can do! Try UMD Speech Clinic. Your child deserves full improvement, and that's what we got there.

[Anonymous]

U of MD is great, but at that age it may be tuff if they don't live near by with child being in school. The other issue is they change therapists every semester so some kids are ok with it, some are not. Mine was but others were not. We had a great experience but others complained about the therapists they got assigned. We got one or two who were ok, but happy with the rest.

OP, time to get a really good evaluation and new therapist. They should be working with both the receptive and expressive.

GW or Georgetown (I forget which), Loyola in Columbia and Scottish Rite all have lower costs clinics as well.

At 6, don't plan for your child to catch up as quickly as PP.

[Anonymous]

OP, if you can swing it, the best money you ever spend might be going to see the Camaratas in Nashville. They gave us our road map after multiple speech therapists dropped the ball with our son.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

OP, if you can swing it, the best money you ever spend might be going to see the Camaratas in Nashville. They gave us our road map after multiple speech therapists dropped the ball with our son.

I would second going only for the opinion. We did not find them helpful as the services, school and everything else was working but I could see where if it wasn't they would be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is 6 - they have been working on expressive language. And apparently his receptive is not great. It was not initially tested in the first evaluation because my main concern at the time was expressive. If receptive is bad, I'm assuming that will make anything and everything that much more difficult for him.

Any speech therapist who just evaluates expressive language without evaluating receptive language for an initial evaluation is incompetent. Knowing a child's receptive language is crucial! There is no excuse considering he was 5 or 6 years old during the initial evaluation. Get another therapist ASAP.

+1 If you wait till 6 for therapy, its helpful but a bit late in the game. Get a new therapist if they did not do a good assessment. Poor receptive is different than expressive. Some kids have one, some both.

This doesn't sound like the therapist's fault--it sounds more like mom was being overly directive without a lot knowledge.

Actually I did ask her why she didn't test for receptive at the time and she said we should focus on one aspect...or something like that. Please don't be mean, I'm trying the best I can. I didn't come here to get shit on.

Pointing out you said it was your main concern. Don't be a hypocrite and accept responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is 6 - they have been working on expressive language. And apparently his receptive is not great. It was not initially tested in the first evaluation because my main concern at the time was expressive. If receptive is bad, I'm assuming that will make anything and everything that much more difficult for him.

Any speech therapist who just evaluates expressive language without evaluating receptive language for an initial evaluation is incompetent. Knowing a child's receptive language is crucial! There is no excuse considering he was 5 or 6 years old during the initial evaluation. Get another therapist ASAP.

+1 If you wait till 6 for therapy, its helpful but a bit late in the game. Get a new therapist if they did not do a good assessment. Poor receptive is different than expressive. Some kids have one, some both.

This doesn't sound like the therapist's fault--it sounds more like mom was being overly directive without a lot knowledge.

Actually I did ask her why she didn't test for receptive at the time and she said we should focus on one aspect...or something like that. Please don't be mean, I'm trying the best I can. I didn't come here to get shit on.

That's completely uncalled for to blame the parent for a bad SLP. Most of us with kids with speech disorders have been in therapy for years and know what to and look for but if OP did not realize the issue and then got a bad SLP, its not her/his fault and instead of slamming them, show some support.
Pointing out you said it was your main concern. Don't be a hypocrite and accept responsibility.