Recs for speech therapist to 9 month old infant with speech delay
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Anonymous
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OP here - thanks for all the support.
DS still doesn’t react to his name, but we have b’s and d’s in the arsenal now (ba, da). It’s not really babbling, but it’s something. We ended up working with Strong Start. We’re not used to using government services - even going to DC public schools for our older son was something of a controversy in the house - we seriously considered a bunch of private schools for him. We had the intake interview and it went well! They validated our concerns and suggested evaluations and next steps. Glad to know DC government is doing its job. |
Anonymous
Glad to hear it is working. FYI - government services include a wide range of things like roads, trash and recycling, food safety,.the National Weather Service,.and so many other things. Pretty much everyone uses government services in one way or another. There is truly no shame in it. |
Anonymous
| OP, ignore the posts questioning how there could be an issue. They do not parent your kid. Sounds you took a great step to reach out to DC services. Good luck. |
Anonymous
Why so snobbish about using public services? |
Anonymous
| Op thanks for this update. Glad you sought an eval and have the ball rolling. Wishing you and your child nothing but the best. Early intervention is amazing and will help your child have the best possible start. |
Anonymous
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OP see if your county will do an eval (MoCo does) and if you qualify for services.
Stepping Stones is great but I've mostly seen for like 15 months onward (they may see babies but I haven't checked). |
Anonymous
Yeah there was no reason to say that about "government services" OP that's gross. Get over yourself. No one cares if your precious snowflake goes to DCPS |
Anonymous
government services are for the poors unless you’re concerned that Larlito is 4 weeks behind on consonant babbling. |
Anonymous
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OP - you can see from this thread that there is debate about whether this issue was appropriately flagged at 9 months.
I think the more important takeaway is that you have learned early on that, where SNs are potentially in play, it falls entirely on the parent to figure it out. Pediatricians are well meaning, but they are not at all experts in SNs. Their value is limited solely to going through the same milestone checklists that you can get for free on the internet. This is helpful for lower functioning parents who are unaware of these milestones. But for the vast majority of functional parents, we're already following those milestones. From here, pediatricians may or may not be a helpful sounding board on determining whether there's something to be concerned about, but most are overly conservative. Sounds like yours is overly aggressive. Unfortunately, as parents it's up to you to sort through their feedback against what you read on the internet and against your gut and personal observation, and decide whether it requires further expertise. And if you think it requires further expertise, it's 100% on you the parent to figure out what that expertise is. Speech therapists and occupational therapists serve an important role for some kids, but I've never met a ST or OT who wasn't happy to take your money. Like, literally never. The flip side is that, at certain ages and with certain issues, you may not find the service available. And your pediatrician won't know anything about service providers. My pediatrician knows the best pediatric ENT, but is not familiar with SN providers. So once you are exploring the possibility of SNs, you have this fine dance where you don't want to ignore things, but you don't want to overblow things -- but you, the parent, the non expert, is responsible for figuring it out. It's overwhelming. |
Anonymous
I was pretty sympathetic to OP until she dropped in the comments about the government services. I mean, her pediatrician suggested seeking treatment. But based on OP's comment, my guess is OP is a high anxiety sahm who is seeing problems where none exist, is escalating the issue with the pediatrician, and pediatrician finally relented and was like "if you want to call a ST, there's no harm". Because any pediatrician worth anything would know that the first step is doing a hearing test. So if this was all driven by the pediatrician, they would have recommended hearing test first. That the pediatrician recommended a ST first suggests to me that they're just going along with OP. |
Anonymous
| Capitol kids therapy - very close by Union station and Capitol Hill |
Anonymous
Maybe it’s not a knock on government services. Maybe she just feels guilty using services that could be offered to others. When I lived abroad, it took me a while to get used to services offered to support families. I supported the government offering those services to everyone and hope the US does the same for all families here someday. But I did have guilt about accepting those services at first, not because I looked down on them, but because I’m used to the American system where support for families is limited. |
Anonymous
10000% this. This should be pinned to the top of the subforum for people who are new to this. Would have been so helpful to me when starting my journey with (now 2) kids who have seen various specialists and therapists. |
Anonymous
Seeing as “Hello!” Is a complete sentence, maybe you were. But not more than that… |
Anonymous
Facts. And the US military. But I guess OP feels ashamed of relying on that too |