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Frequently Asked Questions
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It is important to emphasize that all children learn languages at different rates. There are no fixed rules for when you should seek pediatric speech therapy for your child.
However, there are some general guidelines parents should follow:
- At 9 months, a child should respond to sounds, their name, and understand simple words or gestures. If they don’t, they may be showing signs of hearing impairment.
- At 12–15 months, most children should be speaking their first words
- At 20–24 months, children can speak simple 2-word phrases
- At 36 months, children should be able to frequently use phrases of 3 (or more words)
- At 48 months (4 years) of age, children should be able to speak intelligibly 90% or more of the time.
A good rule of thumb is: single words by age 1; 2-word phrases at age 2; 3-word phrases or more by age 3.
This depends. Children who were tested within the past 6 months and given clear speech therapy objectives can often move straight to scheduling treatment with a new therapist. Simply provide a copy of recent reports.
In this case, we will schedule a consultation to meet with you and your child and review the reports. We will determine at that time whether additional evaluation is needed.
We see most children we work with 1–2 times per week. The exact frequency of visits depends on a number of factors such as:
- The severity of the communication disorder
- Whether the child is receiving school-based therapy
- The type of intervention program recommended
More intensive schedules (3 or more times per week) may be considered if necessary.
Most therapy sessions last 1 hour. This comprises 45 minutes of direct contact and 15 minutes preparing and then documenting the session.
Absolutely! Parents are encouraged to observe sessions either periodically (by accompanying their child into the therapy room) or more extensively by observing through video monitoring.
Be aware that many children perform best, and respond best to speech-language therapy, when their parents are not present. In such cases, parents may be included during the end of treatment sessions to discuss current objectives and go over home program ideas and techniques.
Call us anytime for a free consultation. Once we determine that our services are right for your child, we will contact you about next steps.
We will compile a comprehensive speech-language report detailing your child’s performance on certain types of administered formal and informal testing. We will recommend treatment goals and objectives as well as suggest remediation methods, techniques, and strategies.
No. Due to time and logistical constraints, all our sessions are conducted in our office only.
It is crucial that parents understand their child’s particular communication level before deciding how to practice communication at home.
A common mistake parents make is asking their child lots of questions early on in their development. While questions may seem like the logical way to encourage kids to speak, they will not help if the child has not yet learned how to respond to questions properly.
Instead, model comments about events and encourage turn-taking with your child. Describe in words what is happening (“let’s make lunch!”, etc.) and encourage your child to describe things in similar ways.
Praise your child’s efforts to communicate wherever possible. Whether through gestures, pointing, or verbally, all attempts at communication should be encouraged and positively reinforced.
Yes. Written progress reports are created upon parent request. Be aware that we charge for reports at our normal hourly rate. Progress may also be discussed verbally via face-to-face meetings or teleconferencing (also at our hourly rate).
This depends on many things. Different children learn differently, and some speech-language disorders are more severe than others. Treatment may last for a few weeks, a few months, or a year or more, depending on your child’s specific challenges and needs.
In general, children with receptive language problems (that is, difficulties understanding language that is read or spoken to them) take longer than children with expressive language problems (difficulties making their own sounds or gestures).
Moreover, children on the autism spectrum may also require longer courses of therapy.
In general, insurance providers do not reimburse parents for speech therapy for their children. The primary exception is for rehabilitative speech therapy administered in response to traumatic brain injury or congenitally related speech problems such as a cleft palate.
Unfortunately, speech therapy aimed at treating developmental articulation disorders or developmental language disorders are very rarely covered by insurance.
However, limited services for children diagnosed with autism are sometimes covered. Check with your insurance provider.
We experience the highest demand for after-school appointments, and often have a waiting list for appointments scheduled at 4 or 5 PM. If you and your child can make it to a morning appointment, those can usually be scheduled much sooner.
Our Waxahachie clinic is open 8 AM to 6 PM Monday through Thursday.
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) is an excellent resource for further information on pediatric speech therapy for your child.
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