How many x/week for speech?

[Anonymous]

DS, 18 months, is in private speech therapy 1x week for delayed speech. MIL just offered to pay for intensive therapy, meaning multiple times a week, if we thought it would help.

Would you put your child through this multiple times a week if money were no object?

[Anonymous]

Yes, especially if the issue is apraxia, or articulation issues. My son at that age was in multiple times a week. If it is a delay for other reasons, depending on what it is it may or may not make a difference, What odes your insurance cover,

[Anonymous]

I agree with the PP that if it looks like apraxia, I'd definitely do 2x a week. But, if it's something else, you may not need such intensive therapy.

[Anonymous]

I'm a speech therapist. I'd say 2x/week (mon/wed or tues/thurs) would be ideal. If it's apraxia, perhaps even 3x/week. Of course, it depends on the child. If you see he's starting to resist going, then pull back. I think it's nice for all involved to have the extra reminder to "use good speech" throughout the week. Hopefully it will also mean that you don't need to continue therapy for as long.

[Anonymous]

We do it 2xweek and it's speech delay not apraxia. Since the session is 45 minutes long, I really feel that 2x a week is necessary. I would do more if I could.

[Anonymous]

Definitely do 2x a week. I wish we could do more than that.

[Anonymous]

I agree with others. I would do 2 or 3x a week as long as the ST is excellent. It should all be fun. If your child isn't happy you can cut back or find someone else.

[Anonymous]

Definitely.

[Anonymous]

For my DC, insurance paid for 2x per week for the first 6 months. After that, his scores only justified 1x per week. It was worth it.

[Anonymous]

Thanks all. He has never been diagnosed with apraxia. The county folks think he has slight low muscle tone but the pedi and private therapist disagree. Regardless, we have been doing some facial exercises and PROMPT. We'll up it to 2x a week to see what happens. And 2x a month he has county therapy so then he'd go 3x.

[Anonymous]

I would go to 2x/week if you can.

[Anonymous]

What does your therapist say? I assumed that more would be better when we started (DS started private therapy at 20 months for apraxia-like symptoms though that is not his formal diagnosis at this time) and offered that we could manage to do therapy 2x/week. His therapist said it wasn't necessary and that we could reevaluate later if she/we thought it would be beneficial. Potentially the severity of the issues plays into that question, I guess. DS does have county ST once a week now as well, but did not have that when we started with private therapy and the ST made the call to stick to once per week.