Speech Therapy at 30 Months - Beneficial?

Kintarō Hattori

Hey Folks,

I posted on this subject previously but with some time having passed I wanted to raise it again and get some opinions.

My daughter is 2 years and 6 months old and being raised in a bi-lingual household. My partner speaks Polish to her during the day and I speak English. All in all she seems to be a little clever clogs as she understands what's being said to her in both languages. She knows the alphabet, shapes, colours, all the usual animals and more including the Green Mamba snake, catfish etc. Lately she seems to be picking up numbers and starting to know which image show's 3, 5 etc.
Her receptive language is excellent. With the initial assessment through Arc Speech and Therapy she came out as being a year older than she is. She communicates very well non-verbally and has come up with a number of signs, signals, gestures etc to communicate what she wants, is showing to us etc.
She's very intune with what's happening around her and rather clued in, is great at getting the context of a situation.

The thing is that she has a severe speech delay and was late to babble. Even now she really only has 4/5 words. We've taken her to Arc Speech and Therapy and she had an initial consultation in the public system with a proper one on one to follow down the line.
From what we've seen so far, a lot of what they tell you to do, we're already doing. We're both wondering really if there's likely to be any tangible benefit for her at her age or is it still too early really and is speech therapy something we should really consider down the line.

We tried creche with her when she was quite young but it didn't go well. A few months back we tried creche again, 2 hours a day, 3 days a week but she just didn't take to it at all. She knew where she was going as soon as she was in the car and it was pretty pointless to keep at it. We kind of know when we can keep at something for her own good but this wasn't it. If I was to describe her I'd say she was an intelligent child who is timid, shy, a little nervous of new situations and people but comfortable around folks she knows. However she's really quite clingy with a need to have a parent around. She can be quite full of beans and full of energy in a situation that she's comfortable with. I'm including this for some context. I know we need to really work on socialisation but the main query for me here is around the area of speech therapy.

farmchoice

i think you have done/are doing everything you should and more. as someone who had a child with serious speech dealy it seems to me that you are over worried here, id keep doing what you are doing personally i dont see what use more speech therephy would be now. i have no doubt that time will sort this out.
on the creche thing id defiantly leave it for now if you can.
i have put 3 kids through play school now and have come to the conclusion that as a society we are pushing children in to creche/playschool/montoiusri at too young an age.

in my opinion (and i have completely changed my opinion after having gone through it )2 years of pre-school is too much for many many kids. i'm of the view it takes most of them most of the th3 first 4 months of the second year to get over the trauma of the first year.

maxsmum

farmchoice wrote: »

i have put 3 kids through play school now and have come to the conclusion that as a society we are pushing children in to creche/playschool/montoiusri at too young an age.

in my opinion (and i have completely changed my opinion after having gone through it )2 years of pre-school is too much for many many kids. i'm of the view it takes most of them most of the th3 first 4 months of the second year to get over the trauma of the first year.

This is a bit of a sweeping generalisation. I know plenty of happy well adjusted kids mine included who started creche as babies. My lad's play school class all started with him as babies. Their learning, talking and playing all came on in leaps and bounds and they are still the best of pals. Zero 'trauma' suffered. Not related to OP's question but the parents reading it might be feeling unnecessarily guilty. Plenty of good creche/playschools out there.

Related to the OP's question, my son's speech picked up hugely when he moved to a toddler room aged 2 and 3 months i.e. he was youngest in the room and everyone there was 2 and half-3 and half and chatting away. It was almost overnight. Maybe a coincidence, maybe not. That's just anecdotal and i am sure your SLT has more professional advice.

farmchoice

[QUOTE=maxsmum;111742314]This is a bit of a sweeping generalisation. I know plenty of happy well adjusted kids mine included who started creche as babies. My lad's play school class all started with him as babies. Their learning, talking and playing all came on in leaps and bounds and they are still the best of pals. Zero 'trauma' suffered. Not related to OP's question but the parents reading it might be feeling unnecessarily guilty. Plenty of good creche/playschools out there.

Related to the OP's question, my son's speech picked up hugely when he moved to a toddler room aged 2 and 3 months i.e. he was youngest in the room and everyone there was 2 and half-3 and half and chatting away. It was almost overnight. Maybe a coincidence, maybe not. That's just anecdotal and i am sure your SLT has more professional advice.[/QUOTE]
in my original post i said ''in my opinion'' because it was just my opinion.
any parent who feels guilty after reading some strangers post on a discussion board is too stupid to be allowed to rear children and should have them taken off them, in my opinion.

John Mason

My child had about 4 words at 2 years. he was able to communicate everything he needed by hand gestures and facial expressions. He never babbled, ever.

At about 2 years 8 months, he started talking in full sentences and hasnt shut up since.

He was almost 3 before before he said "No", he actually said turtle before he said no.

Sometimes I wish for the good old days of quiet.

fits

We see a therapist every two weeks. My boy has 3-4 words but his communication is coming along all the time. She gives us tips on what to work on. He has a diagnosed intellectual disability and will be 3 in December. I do think it’s worth it. Ours is 60 for a 30 minute session. ( evaluation was more).