My family is moving to Phoenix in a week, and we're looking for some information on speech therapy for our four year old son. He's got an expressive speech delay of about a year and a half, no known hearing or vision problems, no known physical problems, comprehension and motor skills appear on par for his age. He's not displaying signs of autism, and our therapy group here has told us that with his social skills and affect it's not a concern. There's some signs of attention deficit issues, but he's really too young for good diagnostic testing in that area.
We'll be going through the school district initially, but I'd like to get some advice on other sources of speech therapy for him, preferably in a group setting. Given the complete lack of help our school district that we're moving from has been, I'm somewhat wary of relying on their advice.
We're moving from St. Louis. Where the school district got their board pulled and replaced, accreditation pulled, and their special ed program relies on volunteers for initial screening of speech problems. We got told they couldn't adequately diagnose him because he wouldn't follow their instructions. Then we got told we shouldn't have him properly tested because his physical skills and motor functioning is above-average, and even with his speech problems would put him at "average", thus disqualifying him for help from the special ed district. Needless to say, we went elsewhere. Which is really hard on our very limited budget.
Speech Therapy /
Speech Therapy / Pathology
Are you moving to Phoenix specificaly or a neighboring city?
Check out the following link: http://arizona.kudzu.com & search speech therapy it is a listing throughout the valley - I also have a friend who is a Speech Pathologist and she works out of the Chandler area...
your son sounds alot like
your son sounds alot like our 3.5 year old daughter (although each child of course has their own story :)
She too has been through a battery of evaluations and I know more about all this stuff than I ever cared to know
We now have her enrolled in the Scottsdale Unified School District in the "PANDA" program which is for students as young as three. The evaluation process itself is stressful but she now receives "one on one" or "one on two" speech therapy twice a week as well as OT at a school near our home. There are 9 kids with diffrerent developmental issues in her class and everything they do is therapeutic. I don't know what part of town you are relocating to but I am sure every school district has this available. Good luck with your move and good luck with your son - I know how stressful this type of thing is and how finding the answers is sometimes very difficult
We live in the Kyrene school
We live in the Kyrene school district and they have a speech and language preschool. It's terrific. Three of my kids have gone through the program at Kyrene de las Lomas all with similar types of speech delays that your son has. The preschool is set up with 14 kids in each half day class, 4 days a week. Seven of the kids are typically developing and are there to be age appropriate role models and the others all have some speech disorder. The program is centered on speech in that they sing songs and learn sign language. Snack time, large groups activities, small group activities are all designed to get kids talking. There is a special ed teacher and two aides in each class. The speech therapist is in there only one day a week but has everyone working on specific language goals for the kids who need it. Like I said, everything they do in the 2 1/2 hours a day is specch centered so the kids get a lot of practice.
Besides that, speech therapists are hard to come by unless you can pay yourself. Depending on where you end up living, you shouldn't have too much of a problem finding one if you can pay. If your son can qualify for DDD services (Department of Developmental Disorders) speech therapists may be harder to come by but will be paid for. It doesn't sound like that would be an option for him but it wouldn't hurt to try.
Good luck and let me know if there's anything I can do to help!
Speech-Language
Speech-Language Therapy
Listening Ears is an Arizona-based speech-language, hearing and learning clinic aimed at strengthening the cognitive skills of individuals with learning challenges.
Co-founders Dr. Tracey Graves, Ph.D., CCC-SLP and Lynn Carahaly, MA, CCC-SLP utilize research-based, neuro-cognitive interventions that work to improve functioning and processing.
We welcome you to visit the Listening Ears Web site or contact us at (480) 495-3871 for more information.
http://www.listening-ears.com
Email : info@fdhkids.com
Listening Ears has 2 locations:
8422 E. Shea Blvd., Suite # 103
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
1815 E. Queen Creek Rd. Suite # 1
Chandler, AZ 85286
We provide programs for children with various learning disabilities, including SLD, SLI, dyslexia, AD/HD, Central Auditory Processing Disorders, PDD-NOS/Autism/ Asperger's and other delays and disorders.
Programs include: Lindamood-Bell,PACE, Master the Code, Samonas Auditory Intervention,Fast ForWord®, Visualizing & Verbalizing® and The Listening Program®.