Working with a Speech Therapist
The Gist:
Communicate with your therapist
Make sure they are the right fit
Expect a journey, not a fixed result
Read more…
You’ve had your initial evaluation. Now what?
Once you’ve gotten through the initial evaluation with your chosen therapist, the hard part is over. Getting that diagnosis can be crushing and rewarding at the same time, because now that you know what’s wrong…. You know what’s wrong. Feelings of sadness, grief, confusion and overwhelm are completely normal, but starting therapy will help your child make progress and help your family communicate better.
Now it just gets better from here. You can expect your SLP to come up with a plan fairly rapidly. They were trained and have experience dealing with kids a lot like yours. They’re ready for you.
You are not alone.
In some cases your SLP will recommend a wait and see approach. They may want to see how the struggle progresses or fizzles out in the next couple of months. They may not see an immediate need for therapy.
When they feel the need to move forward with therapy you can expect a weekly or bi-weekly visit for many speech and language issues. These visits usually last between 30 minutes and an hour.
During your child's initial therapy session it is important to watch how your child interacts with your therapist. How are they feeding off of each other? If this seems like a good match, the pairing will seem easy and fun.
Not to say that therapy won’t have it’s challenges. Even if they get along swimmingly, your child may experience moments of hiding behind you or clinging to your legs. This is just your child's way of holding onto some control and making sure that they can still count on you if they start feeling uncomfortable.
As with all relationships, this one will progress and become easier.
If your child is protesting vigorously over more than three or four sessions, it’s time to look at the situation and see what can be changed.
Is it a bad time of day for your child?
Is the therapy too hard (this is most often why children resist)?
Is the therapist just not a good fit in terms of personality or skill? (This happens and it’s okay; make a change if you need to.)
There are therapists who will know very little about what your child is dealing with, and there are therapists who will know exactly what your child’s problem is. You need to find a person who knows or who is willing to be systematically curious about trying different approaches and seeing what works best. Talk to the therapist. Watch them with your child.
Ask the therapist to explain what is going on with your child—not just provide a diagnosis, but an explanation of what that diagnosis means. Ask them how they plan to treat the symptoms they see and how they will make changes if they don’t see progress. You have a right to this information, and the therapist should be able to explain it to you in a way that you can understand.
Speech therapy should be FUN for your child, and you should have a good feeling about the therapist your child sees. You’re going to be with them for a chunk of time. Additionally, your therapist should be able to explain what is going on with your child and what they plan to do about it. You can and should be involved in your child’s therapy.
If you have concerns about the status of your child’s current therapy sessions, I’d love to help. A quick and easy way to get a lot of info fast is to check out my book, The Gift of Speech: a practical guide to making decisions about your young child’s speech, language and communication needs.
You can download a FREE PDF copy of chapter one here.
All my best-
Gabriele