Georgetown audiology is amazing.

We went before my son was 2. It helped us a lot!

Anonymous wrote:If you are in Fairfax County, check out Child First(?) program. Your kid gets tested for hearing and by a speech language pathologist. If your child’s speech is delayed under their standards, they come to your child’s preschool/daycare/home to do speech therapy for free. FCPS system gets involved and your kid gets an IEP, which is basically special ed. There are private speech sessions you can pay for if you don’t want to go through a county program. But first, kid needs an evaluation by an SLP.

An SLP should not be doing a hearing exam. An audiologist should be doing it.

If you are in Fairfax County, check out Child First(?) program. Your kid gets tested for hearing and by a speech language pathologist. If your child’s speech is delayed under their standards, they come to your child’s preschool/daycare/home to do speech therapy for free. FCPS system gets involved and your kid gets an IEP, which is basically special ed. There are private speech sessions you can pay for if you don’t want to go through a county program. But first, kid needs an evaluation by an SLP.

Getting hearing tested is never a bad thing and is a good jumping-off point. If he gets a lot of ear infections, he might have persistent fluid on the ears which can impact his hearing. If his hearing is normal, you can request an evaluation from the public schools and if he’s found to have a delay, he’ll get an IEP and services which might include speech therapy, a therapist visiting him at school or day care to work with him, or possible classroom placement into a special education preschool program (though if he’s already 4, especially if turning 5 soon, there might not be time for a classroom placement this school year). You can also pursue private therapy with a private speech therapist, which your insurance may or may not cover.

Look into your local Head Start program. They do preschool age evals and will help connect you with services paid for by your tax dollars.

Anonymous wrote:OP my guess is that audiology means go get his hearing tested. This will tell you whether the speech is related to a hearing issue or not. You might want to find out about any hearing problems before you start speech language.

Bad advice. A hearing evaluation is always part of a good speech evaluation but you don't wait on an evaluation and therapy of a hearing test. You do both.

With any speech issues, hearing should always be tested.

OP my guess is that audiology means go get his hearing tested. This will tell you whether the speech is related to a hearing issue or not. You might want to find out about any hearing problems before you start speech language.

Get a speech evaluation before you start therapy and a good speech evaluation included a hearing exam (audiology) to rule out any hearing issues as that could be a cause. Anyone who doesn't tell you to get a hearing test is not doing a good job. Its not really dual track. Hearing exam is for rule out (or in) and start speech.

Now that my kid is four, I feel like he's still baby-talking. He has been a ear infection kid in general, but while he has words, I feel like he's missing things, etc. The pediatrician said to go to audiology? The daycare offered to wrap in speech language? Is there a sequence to these things I need to know about or should I start dual tracking things until we figure out what is up (if anything?)