Speech Concerns

I thought my daughter was learning English pretty quickly when a few months ago her pediatrician suggested otherwise. Her opinion was that since she understands so much and appears to be bright and talks so much that this talking must be actual words/sentences to her but we can't understand it due to her articulation. I shrugged it off. My opinion was she hadn't been in the country that long and kids develop at different rates and English is her second language and it would come.

A few months later, at my parent teacher conference, her teacher expressed the same concern. As I have mentioned before, her teacher is Ethiopian and so I learned that within her babbling, no Amharic words are being mixed in. Ms. E also felt that she was trying to speak English but is often unintelligible.

With another professional saying this, I began to get concerned. Neither felt that speech therapy was a necessity at this point but that I should just pay attention and perhaps seek it out at a later date.

Well, that time is now. Though I still feel she is still within normal or typical range of speech development, I have had growing concerns when I read about kids who were adopted at the same time or after who are speaking in complete sentences. She just started saying sentences with more than 2 words a few weeks ago and even now she rarely says more than 4 or 5 word utterances. Then what really propelled me to make an appointment was her little Ethiopian friend, A, at daycare. A only spoke Amharic at home and started at the daycare about 2 months after Almi. I don't know much about her family other than her mother doesn't appear to be fluent in English and Amen didn't speak a word of English when she began. Well, the other day at drop off A came and gave me a hug. I hugged her and then told her I had to go. She looked at me and said, "You have to go to work?" I almost fell on the floor. This child did.not.speak.any.English 3 months ago and here she was saying a complete sentence to me. I was amazed. And impressed. And subsequently saddened and worried. My child can't do that.

Now, I have no idea if she has been hearing English at home her whole life (through TV for example) or if she has older siblings; what I do know is she seems to have acquired English very, very fast. And so I made an appointment.

I first contacted a place that does private speech therapy because they offer free screenings. I figure even if I can't afford their prices, they can tell me if she qualifies. Then I contacted the Early Intervention people and discussed my concerns with them. They had me fill out a 6 page questionnaire which asked questions related to speech, but also gross and fine motor, social/emotional and some other category. I submitted it online and on Monday I will fax the other paperwork. They have 45 days to schedule her an appt. and review her case before they will tell me if she qualifies. If she does, they determine how often and the fee is on a sliding scale. Meanwhile the private place is going to see her next Monday.

What kills me is I used to work at a school that catered to deaf and hard of hearing so we had an onsite audiologist and speech pathologists in every classroom! I could have had the screening done months ago or at least informally asked them if her speech was developing at an age appropriate rate. And I am sure they would have offered some sort of discount towards speech therapy and since she would have been a student there, her sessions would have been during school hours.

But, that's water under the bridge. At least I have these two options in motion and I will soon have some answers.