My LDS Preschool | My Son's Speech Journey

When our son, Chase, was a toddler, we nicknamed him “The Hulk” because he would get so frustrated and angry.

People would often ask, “What did he say?” or comment, “I can’t understand him.”

As his mom, I could understand most of what he was communicating and would translate for others, often surprised that they didn’t know what he was saying. He was still only two-years-old, and I was confident his articulation would become more easily understood soon. He babbled all day long and was as precious as could be with a funny sense of humor and scowling personality.

As our oldest son, I knew his speech was delayed compared to his two older sisters, but thought he would catch up. I tried to read to him more often and spend more time playing with him. I made a poster board with common household pictures we encountered throughout the day, such as apple and sandwich, to guide words to work on. I was hopeful his speech would improve.

Cindy, another co creator of My LDS Preschool and a respected professional with her masters degree in speech-language pathology, encouraged us to try speech therapy intervention with our little Chase. Through her training, she was able to recognize early on that developmental patterns weren’t being reached. When we would get together for family fun, she would patiently ask us about Chase’s speech and if he had been tested yet.

By Chase’s third birthday, nothing had improved with Chase’s speech development. I realized some intervention may be helpful. I made an appointment through my school district to see if he would qualify for any preschool speech services. Of course it’s quite the process of waiting in anticipation to get an appointment. I remember Chase was tested for a variety of abilities before we could get a special speech evaluation. Finally after two testing sessions of observing and paperwork as well as an evaluation with an ENT to rule out hearing disorders, we qualified as likely for services. We were able to get an evaluation with a speech language pathologist through the school district.

I remember encouraging my newly turned three-year-old to tell the kind “teacher” what pictures he saw on the flip chart. I had my one-year-old in a stroller that I was anxious to keep as quiet as could be so Chase’s words could be heard clearly. I was also pregnant with our 5th baby at the time. Chase was well behaved for his evaluation (thank goodness!) and tried his best. After Chase’s test, the speech-language pathologist quickly scored her results visually and told me Chase scored in the 1% for speech articulation. Meaning 99% of his peers spoke more clearly than he did. Chase’s language was on target, but his articulation was way below.

I was shocked. This news really shook me up. I felt like I had failed my little boy. I felt like I should have intervened earlier. Was I doing something wrong as a mom? Did I have too many children to best help my little guy? As a licensed early childhood teacher, shouldn’t I have been able to “cure” this on my own? Would Chase be able to overcome this speech challenge or would he be teased in school when the time came for kindergarten to start? Would a little bit of time focusing on speech really make a different week by week? I was so sad and disheartened.

I remember putting on a brave face as my eyes filled with tears at the reality of our situation and complemented Chase for being such a good boy. Then I buckled my little boys up in their carseats and drove home as I called my husband and fought back tears to share the news.

I hadn’t ever experienced speech therapy before and didn’t know what to expect. I’d love to share our journey with you.

It’s been an ongoing yet successful working process for our sweet boy. The school district offered a wonderful free service of two days/week for a two hour special speech preschool class with a caring and trained speech language pathologist. We adored his teacher and she loved our boy! Chase was able to ride to speech preschool on a little yellow bus! After a year we didn’t see as much improvement as we hoped and wondered if he needed more 1:1 time with a speech therapist instead of just his group setting. So we continued with the free speech preschool we loved and added on 30 minute individual speech therapy sessions through a private clinic twice a week. Our health insurance helped a little with the cost. With this combination, we saw immediate success! What hope! After a few months, we were able to lower private speech sessions to once a week, which helped our budget a lot. Chase graduated from his speech preschool class when he was eligible for kindergarten and continued to receive 45 minutes/week of free speech therapy through our school district.

I remember a teacher who worked with Chase as a four-year-old couldn’t understand most of what Chase communicated. The same teacher saw him a year later and was amazed it was the same boy! We felt so proud of Chase!

Currently, Chase is in first grade and no longer qualifies for speech services through the school district because he scored above 7th%. What a celebration! He still needs help with certain sounds in his articulation, such as /s/ and /z/, but he is nearly 100% intelligible which is an amazing blessing. Chase is losing his front teeth at this fun growth stage, so we are putting speech therapy on hold for a bit but will likely continue sessions in the summer to continue to help him master his sounds.

If you are concerned with your child’s speech or language development, the following suggestions from Cindy, our preschool co-creator and Speech-Language Pathologist, may be helpful.

Familiarize yourself with what is considered normal speech and language development here. Click on your child’s age to read descriptions of what is expected.

If you are concerned, get a screening to see if more testing needs to be done. Don’t “wait and see” if they outgrow what you are worried about. Early intervention is crucial for the best outcomes. Below are places you will be able to get screenings based on your child’s age.

Birth to up to age 3:

ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) or your state’s equivalent, does screenings, testing, and if necessary therapy for free. The process can be long, so contact them as soon as possible.

Age 3 and beyond:

Schools do screenings, testing and therapy for free. The process can be long, so contact them as soon as possible.

Any age:

Private screening, testing, and therapy are also good options. Private services are especially helpful for the following situations: when wait time for free services is long, for a child who has a delay that isn’t considered significant enough to qualify for free services, or as a supplement to free therapy because doubling up may result in faster progress (in some cases).

If your child does need therapy, be involved in the therapy process. If you practice the skills your child is learning at home, progress will happen much faster. Therapists love when parents ask for what they can do at home and then actually follow through. For example, if your child is working on developing the use of early sounds, an activity such as this one to practice “P,” “B,” or “M” at home would be perfect. Your Speech-Language Pathologist will be able to help you know what is appropriate.

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Each child’s speech journey is different and follows a unique timeline with interventions and results. For us, working at home with Chase wasn’t enough and we definitely needed trained speech therapist professionals to help us through this process. And that’s ok! Now that we are four years into the speech journey for Chase, I am able to recognize that I didn’t do anything wrong to cause his speech delay and reaching out for help is a way of showing love for my boy. Speech-language pathologists go to school to receive special training to know how to best help, and I’m so glad we could benefit from it.