Are You Concerned About Your Child’s Speech Development?

You were nervous and anxious for the home visit.

When you first realized that your 11 month old son was not babbling as much as your oldest daughter, you had a long discussion with your husband. And while he was not really worried, he agreed that if you could get a free hearing and speech evaluation from the public school speech pathologist it was worth the phone call.

In the end, the school district’s speech pathologist did not find any receptive language disorders or expressive language disorders, so your son does not qualify for any services at this time. The speech therapy team did, however, tell you that they would make appointments to come out once a month to provide you with training about additional efforts that you and your husband could be making to help your son progress at a faster rate.

Parents Are Often Anxious about Language Development in Their Children

When you are a new parent all of your energies focus on the growth and development of your child. If, for instance, your first born talked early and walked within a year you can be anxious if your second child does not do the same. Even when your first born talks so much that your younger child never has to speak up, it can be alarming when speech appears to be delayed. Fortunately, there are speech pathologists and other developmental experts who can offer listening skill training, auditory-verbal therapy, and other evaluation and intervention methods.

In an effort to be proactive, in fact, it is important to make sure that you are monitoring the development of your child and working with the best available resources if there is a need. For these same reasons, school districts are willing to come to your home and test a child to make sure that there are no noticeable delays. In some cases, these districts begin offering in home services to help a child reach the necessary speech and language milestones. In addition, schools will also help parents determine if a child is meeting the right physical milestones as well.

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