Recommendations - Next step for speech delay

[Anonymous]

PP, I don't have any luck finding any one-on-one/social playgroup on weekend for normal/speech delay kiddos in Montgomery county for that age group. I think it would be beneficial to both toddlers & also parents to learn from each other in a friendly & no-rush environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not OP, but I have a similar situation here. I am in Montgomery county. My 23 months old has expressive & receptive speech delay diagnosed 2 months ago, and he just starts receiving county early intervention speech therapy last week.

He has already seen a developmental pediatrician in DC, and it was about 2 hours appointment. I don't know if it is worth it or not, because it is just to confirm that my LO has speech delay, and no other obvious problem. It is a release of mind. I hear that I may have to pay $300 to $1,500 cash for that appointment if the insurance does not pay for it. Finger crossed, and I will see because I have not seen the bill yet.

I am not pursing private therapy as of now because I also hear that to wait till my LO being 2.5 year old or 3 year old would be more beneficial & cost-benefit. I also am not sure if my insurance would pay for speech therapy for my LO even though I have an official speech delay report from developmental pediatrician. Anyone knows?

I don't know what my next step too. If money is not an issue, I would go for private therapy. But I am not sure are there private speech therapy for this young? Any recommendations for Montgomery county?

There are speech therapists who take insurance, and some insurers do cover it.

I know National Speech in Bethesda is one option; if you call and provide them with your insurance information I think they will check your benefits and see what is covered.

http://www.nationaltherapycenter.com

National Speech Insurance FAQ http://www.nationaltherapycenter.com/insurance-faqs.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not OP, but I have a similar situation here. I am in Montgomery county. My 23 months old has expressive & receptive speech delay diagnosed 2 months ago, and he just starts receiving county early intervention speech therapy last week.

He has already seen a developmental pediatrician in DC, and it was about 2 hours appointment. I don't know if it is worth it or not, because it is just to confirm that my LO has speech delay, and no other obvious problem. It is a release of mind. I hear that I may have to pay $300 to $1,500 cash for that appointment if the insurance does not pay for it. Finger crossed, and I will see because I have not seen the bill yet.

I am not pursing private therapy as of now because I also hear that to wait till my LO being 2.5 year old or 3 year old would be more beneficial & cost-benefit. I also am not sure if my insurance would pay for speech therapy for my LO even though I have an official speech delay report from developmental pediatrician. Anyone knows?

I don't know what my next step too. If money is not an issue, I would go for private therapy. But I am not sure are there private speech therapy for this young? Any recommendations for Montgomery county?

You don't need to wait until a certain age for private ST. There are only so many hours in the day, but if you have the time and depending on insurance may need to pay out of pocket and get reimbursed, there are definitely options.
Basic Concepts in Rockville, National Speech in Bethesda, ITS in Kensington, Pediatric Developmental Center in olney are some that have been mentioned here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not OP, but I have a similar situation here. I am in Montgomery county. My 23 months old has expressive & receptive speech delay diagnosed 2 months ago, and he just starts receiving county early intervention speech therapy last week.

He has already seen a developmental pediatrician in DC, and it was about 2 hours appointment. I don't know if it is worth it or not, because it is just to confirm that my LO has speech delay, and no other obvious problem. It is a release of mind. I hear that I may have to pay $300 to $1,500 cash for that appointment if the insurance does not pay for it. Finger crossed, and I will see because I have not seen the bill yet.

I am not pursing private therapy as of now because I also hear that to wait till my LO being 2.5 year old or 3 year old would be more beneficial & cost-benefit. I also am not sure if my insurance would pay for speech therapy for my LO even though I have an official speech delay report from developmental pediatrician. Anyone knows?

I don't know what my next step too. If money is not an issue, I would go for private therapy. But I am not sure are there private speech therapy for this young? Any recommendations for Montgomery county?

You don't need to wait until a certain age for private ST. There are only so many hours in the day, but if you have the time and depending on insurance may need to pay out of pocket and get reimbursed, there are definitely options.
Basic Concepts in Rockville, National Speech in Bethesda, ITS in Kensington, Pediatric Developmental Center in olney are some that have been mentioned here.

My 23 months old boy only has few words and they are not that consistent, e.g. bye bye, mom, yum yum, mmm (for yes), and that is it. He understands a lot of instructions & use a lot of nonverbal languages/gestures, but does not babble a lot. My LO is more like a baby level in terms of language development, does private ST would be beneficial to him? He is in early intervention program for twice a month for an hour each.

[Anonymous]

My dd had an expressive/motor delay, which later was dx as Childhood Apraxia. She started speech therapy at 20 months. She started out 2x a week until 2.5 then went 5x a week until 5.5. We didn't have any other evaluations since there didn't seem to be other issues. I would wait and see what your SLP recommends. Just my advice is to never miss speech unless your dd is very ill. Early intervention is the greatest thing around!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not OP, but I have a similar situation here. I am in Montgomery county. My 23 months old has expressive & receptive speech delay diagnosed 2 months ago, and he just starts receiving county early intervention speech therapy last week.

He has already seen a developmental pediatrician in DC, and it was about 2 hours appointment. I don't know if it is worth it or not, because it is just to confirm that my LO has speech delay, and no other obvious problem. It is a release of mind. I hear that I may have to pay $300 to $1,500 cash for that appointment if the insurance does not pay for it. Finger crossed, and I will see because I have not seen the bill yet.

I am not pursing private therapy as of now because I also hear that to wait till my LO being 2.5 year old or 3 year old would be more beneficial & cost-benefit. I also am not sure if my insurance would pay for speech therapy for my LO even though I have an official speech delay report from developmental pediatrician. Anyone knows?

I don't know what my next step too. If money is not an issue, I would go for private therapy. But I am not sure are there private speech therapy for this young? Any recommendations for Montgomery county?

You don't need to wait until a certain age for private ST. There are only so many hours in the day, but if you have the time and depending on insurance may need to pay out of pocket and get reimbursed, there are definitely options.
Basic Concepts in Rockville, National Speech in Bethesda, ITS in Kensington, Pediatric Developmental Center in olney are some that have been mentioned here.

We did both private and early intervention for DC. The combination was worth it depending how severe the issue is. To me it was worth sacrificing vacations and retirement for a few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not OP, but I have a similar situation here. I am in Montgomery county. My 23 months old has expressive & receptive speech delay diagnosed 2 months ago, and he just starts receiving county early intervention speech therapy last week.

He has already seen a developmental pediatrician in DC, and it was about 2 hours appointment. I don't know if it is worth it or not, because it is just to confirm that my LO has speech delay, and no other obvious problem. It is a release of mind. I hear that I may have to pay $300 to $1,500 cash for that appointment if the insurance does not pay for it. Finger crossed, and I will see because I have not seen the bill yet.

I am not pursing private therapy as of now because I also hear that to wait till my LO being 2.5 year old or 3 year old would be more beneficial & cost-benefit. I also am not sure if my insurance would pay for speech therapy for my LO even though I have an official speech delay report from developmental pediatrician. Anyone knows?

I don't know what my next step too. If money is not an issue, I would go for private therapy. But I am not sure are there private speech therapy for this young? Any recommendations for Montgomery county?

Our insurance did cover this, although we had a referral from our pediatrician. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not OP, but I have a similar situation here. I am in Montgomery county. My 23 months old has expressive & receptive speech delay diagnosed 2 months ago, and he just starts receiving county early intervention speech therapy last week.

He has already seen a developmental pediatrician in DC, and it was about 2 hours appointment. I don't know if it is worth it or not, because it is just to confirm that my LO has speech delay, and no other obvious problem. It is a release of mind. I hear that I may have to pay $300 to $1,500 cash for that appointment if the insurance does not pay for it. Finger crossed, and I will see because I have not seen the bill yet.

I am not pursing private therapy as of now because I also hear that to wait till my LO being 2.5 year old or 3 year old would be more beneficial & cost-benefit. I also am not sure if my insurance would pay for speech therapy for my LO even though I have an official speech delay report from developmental pediatrician. Anyone knows?

I don't know what my next step too. If money is not an issue, I would go for private therapy. But I am not sure are there private speech therapy for this young? Any recommendations for Montgomery county?

You don't need to wait until a certain age for private ST. There are only so many hours in the day, but if you have the time and depending on insurance may need to pay out of pocket and get reimbursed, there are definitely options.
Basic Concepts in Rockville, National Speech in Bethesda, ITS in Kensington, Pediatric Developmental Center in olney are some that have been mentioned here.

My 23 months old boy only has few words and they are not that consistent, e.g. bye bye, mom, yum yum, mmm (for yes), and that is it. He understands a lot of instructions & use a lot of nonverbal languages/gestures, but does not babble a lot. My LO is more like a baby level in terms of language development, does private ST would be beneficial to him? He is in early intervention program for twice a month for an hour each.

As a BTDT parent, I'd say yes. Two hours a month is scratching the surface. EI programs suffer from funding; they are unfounded mandates in most states.

[Anonymous]

Ei aren't going to provide everything a child needs, however at that age its fine. If it is just an expressive disorder, I would not be as concerned as a receptive or apraxia. We always did private only. At 3, U of MD has a speech specific preschool called LEAP. They have changed directors a few times since we were there so I cannot speak to how it is now. It greatly helped my child and he was able to successfully transition with no issues to another school. I never found much speech specific outside the school system, LEAP and our private therapist. Several of the speech agencies have private camps but they are very costly compared to U of MD and hit or miss depending on the staff and kids that year. We decided it was not worth it due to cost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ei aren't going to provide everything a child needs, however at that age its fine. If it is just an expressive disorder, I would not be as concerned as a receptive or apraxia. We always did private only. At 3, U of MD has a speech specific preschool called LEAP. They have changed directors a few times since we were there so I cannot speak to how it is now. It greatly helped my child and he was able to successfully transition with no issues to another school. I never found much speech specific outside the school system, LEAP and our private therapist. Several of the speech agencies have private camps but they are very costly compared to U of MD and hit or miss depending on the staff and kids that year. We decided it was not worth it due to cost.

EI uses apraxia as code for pretty much all speech delays. Receptive issues aren't the end all be all and since most of these kids haven't been to developmental pediatricians, a lot of people don't know what issues their kids have b/c EI doesn't diagnose.

If people can swing it financially and from a time perspective, then private speech helps b/c early intervention is critical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ei aren't going to provide everything a child needs, however at that age its fine. If it is just an expressive disorder, I would not be as concerned as a receptive or apraxia. We always did private only. At 3, U of MD has a speech specific preschool called LEAP. They have changed directors a few times since we were there so I cannot speak to how it is now. It greatly helped my child and he was able to successfully transition with no issues to another school. I never found much speech specific outside the school system, LEAP and our private therapist. Several of the speech agencies have private camps but they are very costly compared to U of MD and hit or miss depending on the staff and kids that year. We decided it was not worth it due to cost.

EI uses apraxia as code for pretty much all speech delays. Receptive issues aren't the end all be all and since most of these kids haven't been to developmental pediatricians, a lot of people don't know what issues their kids have b/c EI doesn't diagnose.

If people can swing it financially and from a time perspective, then private speech helps b/c early intervention is critical.

Never heard of any of that.

[Anonymous]

OP, please ignore all the advice to wait and see if it goes away.

1. Contact ITC (Infant Toddler Connection in Fairfax County; other counties have similar) -- early intervention services that provide a free assessment. If your child qualifies, you will get a high-quality, low-cost (on a sliding scale) speech therapist who will come to your home.

2. See a developmental pediatrician. We went to Kennedy Krieger because we heard great things and they took our insurance (BCBS Federal).

3. Yes, signing is helpful. We used "Signing Time."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would wait till 2-2.5 to start private therapies. A lot of kids can catch up by that age and 16 months is still really young. would hold off till 2.5-3 on a developmental ped if you believe it is only a language issue and its expressive. I would be more concerned if it was also receptive.

I'd make the developmental pediatrician appointments now. It takes about 6-7 months to get in any way, at which point the child will be older. If by that time the concerns are resolved, then cancel the appointment and make someone else on the wait list really happy.

This, exactly. I wouldn't rush to get a developmental pediatrican appt because at 16 months this MIGHT be just expressive speech issue which will resolve in a year or two with therapy (and the speech therapist should also give you ideas of how to work with your child to encourage speech, too.)

by the time the appt is coming up, you'll either still be worried or not. But I wouldn't rush to get in off the waiting list - really, your toddler will most likely catch up. do you feel that your child understands you? That is, if you say "bring me your shoes" will she? (of course, a 16 month old won't always do what you ask, so that is hard to always assess, LOL, just because they are busy 16 month olds and have their own agenda). I've had multiple times when you are talking ABOUT the child's shoes to another adult - "where are Larla's shoes? I need to find them to go outside" and all of a sudden the 16 or 18 month old arrives, with shoes in hand - that's a child who can understand (receptive) even before she can express.

[Anonymous]

For the PP with a 23 month old: yes, if you have going to Early Invention (it's called Child Find in Maryland) and they found he had a significant delay, they will provide him with speech therapy. Whether it's enough a week you'll have to determine.

BUT, YES, a child of 16 months and 24 months and 21/2 years old CAN benefit from speech therapy. The speech therapists know stuff we simply don't know, and will start working on the child using sounds and language - developmentally appropriately. that is, the therapist would expect different hings of the 16 month old than the 21/2 year old, but would also work where the child IS and know where they want the child TO GO in their language development.

I am simply NOT a "wait and see" kind of person. So I would absolutely start speech therapy - the OP is going to do that through EI, and her question is whether to supplement with private also.

To the parent of the 23 month old: YES, start your child in therapy.