Speech Dismissals: Was my child dismissed too soon?!

As a parent, coming to terms with the need for therapy can be hard on the heart.  However, once your child starts speech therapy, your therapy team becomes a part of your family.  Obviously, the ultimate goal is to reach dismissal.  Your child has met their current goals and the therapist proudly hands over a certificate of graduation!  What a glorious day, or is it? Sometimes, parents may feel that continued therapy would be beneficial.  Understanding how your child has reached the point of dismissal is often confusing.  Perhaps Johnny still doesn’t say his R sounds or misuses verbs.  As a parent, these types of performance errors can cause concern.   Here are a few things to consider: Therapists follow specific developmental guidelines, use nationally normed standardized assessments, paired with professional experience to determine when your child is ready to be dismissed.   Your child may have many articulation errors when speaking.  If the national guidelines show that the errors are acceptable for your child’s age; continued therapy would not be recommended.   The majority of children will gain these skills without intervention. Your child may have a mild delay that does not warrant direct therapy but would be better served through home programming. Many parents are able to target skills during daily activities! Your child may need the opportunity to be around peers to gain the skills.  For example, many young children show pragmatically unexpected behaviors.  As they start school and interact in peer groups, they will learn many skills naturally.   Should your child be re-evaluated after dismissal? Here are examples of scenarios where a child that may have received services in the past would benefit from a closer look at skills via a re-evaluation. A child has had ample opportunity to gain social skills via peer groups, family groups, community exposure, and parent modeling; yet continues to be inappropriate and show lack of social awareness: Pragmatic Skills Reassessment Needed A child is age 8, not showing awareness of continued articulation deficit, misarticulates all R sounds, has obvious lisping of S/Z, or misarticulated multiple sounds when speaking. Articulation Skills Reassessment Needed A school-aged child cannot tell you what he/she has read, cannot answer comprehension questions, cannot problem-solve with peers, and/or compromise. Language Skills Reassessment Needed A school-aged child commonly uses the wrong vocabulary, does not know grade-level vocabulary when reading, has trouble asking or answering questions expected of their peers, or struggles with grammar when writing. Language Skills Reassessment Needed This is not a comprehensive list of reevaluation skills need; however, if you feel that specific skills are behind peers, have not improved, or commonly get discussed in parent/teacher conferences; a reevaluation can help determine need and assist with planning for future skill acquisition.   Bottom line:  Outpatient Pediatric Speech Therapy covers articulation, oral motor, feeding, receptive language, expressive language, pragmatic language, reading, and all of the pathways that fall between these broad categories.  If you have a concern, reach out!  We would be more than happy to help you determine your child’s current skills and if necessary, help you navigate and plan for growth.

Articulation: When should I be concerned?

If you google articulation, there is a wealth of information at your fingertips.  The problem, which data can you trust?  Which list of developmental norms is the correct one?  There are charts and blogs and articles that are all contradictory.  IT is overwhelming, at best.  As speech pathologists, we also see many confusing documents.  This blog is meant to help parents have a quick, concise explanation based on research based articles and data from the national board for SLPs, ASHA (American Speech-Language Hearing Association).   Here are some important facts: What is an articulation disorder???  An articulation disorder is defined as a speech disorder involving difficulties articulating specific types of sound Sound developmental milestones-it is important to remember that children can master these sounds early in age and many sounds have a time range of mastery  Age 2: /h, p, n, d, b, w, m/ Age 3: /t, f, y, ng, k, g/ Age 4: /ch, l, v, dz, s, z, sh/ Age 5: /zh, r, th (“the”)/ Age 6: /th (“thumb”)/ If your child is not yet making these sounds, here are a few tips: How can you help improve your child’s articulation at home? Play: engage in play where you model and use lots of different sounds while playing (Example: “ch ch ch ch” as a train passes by, animal sounds, etc) Talk to your child throughout the dat to model correct production of sounds  Reduce background noise when engaging with your child so there is less distraction  Look at your child while you are speaking to them so they can see your model of words/sounds Read to your child Repeat your child’s sentence if it is not clear. By repeating what your child has said you are producing a good language model and you are showing that you have listened to what the child is saying What are activities to do at home to help improve articulation? Naming items together  Copying facial expressions in the mirror Playing something together and modeling words they are having difficulties with  Modeling and using different sounds during interactions (“s” for a snake sound, “shhh” the baby is sleeping) Listening to and identifying sounds in words (“sh” is the sound shoe starts with) Correcting if the child says a word incorrectly and having them repeat correct production back to you  Finally, If you have additional concerns or want more information, reach out to your pediatrician. They will be able to listen to your child and determine if a referral to a Speech-Language Pathologist is appropriate.  Early intervention is research based and helpful to many children who are not reaching the expected developmental milestones.  If you have concerns, trust your instinct and talk to your doctor. NWA has many wonderful therapists that would love to help your child reach their highest potential. Happy Articulating! Miss Bailey and Mrs. Vanessa