Speech eval or not

amother

Black

Thu, Sep 22 2016, 8:44 pm

My daughter is 23 months old. She has a lot to say but unfortunately I dont understand much cuz its mainly gibberish. She says a lot of single words like animnal cookie stroller but her pronounciation is off she says manimal tootie roller. My sister who is a speech therapist told me that shed probably qualify for speech and whats there to lose ill be able to understand better and she wont be frusturated at me not knowing what she wants. I asked her morah who is in her fifties and she thouggt I was nuts. She said my daughter is far from the worse talker in the class. Should I bother getting my daughter evaluated or not?

LiLIsraeli

Thu, Sep 22 2016, 9:28 pm

I'm of the opinion that if you have a concern, get her evaluated and see. In order to qualify for services she needs to be delayed by 33% in one area or 25% in two or more (at least in my state). It can't hurt to have someone come to the house and play with her for an hour. If she qualifies, great! If not, great! What do you have to lose?

bsy

Thu, Sep 22 2016, 9:37 pm

As a speech therapist, those "mistakes" are normal and age appropriate. If those are the concerns, I doubt she'd qualify. It doesn't hurt to have an eval, but for early intervention you need significant delay, and this doesn't sound like it is. At age 2, kids are expected to be intelligible just 50 percent of the time to unfamiliar people. And she's not even 2 yet.

seeker

Fri, Sep 23 2016, 12:57 am

My general philosophy about these things is to go for the eval because you have nothing to lose. It's free and can give you useful information whether or not you end up getting therapy afterward - they can give you perspective and advice as part of the evaluation itself.

If you, the mom, can hardly ever understand what she says, to me that's enough of a red flag to at least get evaluated. When mom can't understand you that is bound for frustration.

amother

Royalblue

Fri, Sep 23 2016, 5:16 am

My daughter has a developmental delay, but it's all motor skills. When she went for an evaluation with a develpomental neurologist at age 27 months, I asked abou ther speech, whcih wasn't so clear and had some weird thigns about it (though she is very verbal). He said that after 2 years old, a stranger should be able to understand 50% of what your child says (and he could). He said before 2, don't even think about it. Language skills can seemingly double almost overnight in kids this age.

My kid is now 3.5 and she still doesn't pronounce all her letters (though they say this usually resolves naturally by age 4) and there is still something unusual about how she talks, so I figured I would get her evaluated now and not wait, because why not? So I took her to be evaluated, and the speech therapist said - "I see what your concerns are, but they could all easily resolve by age 4, so come back by then". It felt kind of pointless that I went. So I know there are people who say just go, and you can, but you may get nothing out of it but another appointment later for when you should have gone anyway. I would make an appointment now for about 2-4 months for now for an evaluation, and if you don't need it then, so cancel it. And if you do feel you need it, then you already have it. This isn't such a long time to wait, and unless you feel that there is a major communication problem with your child, I don't think waiting a few months makes a difference. If you do feel it is important to get evaluated now anyway, it of course doesn't hurt to go, and I just wanted to give you realistic expectations about getting evaluated early. I always say to trust your instinct, you always know best and should get your child checked if you think it's warranted - I have done this several times, and sometimes it was a problem (her motor delay) and sometimes it was nothing.