My Son’s Speech Journey: How to Help Your Child With Speech

In my eyes my son is perfect, but I do acknowledge the fact he needs some extra help in some developmental portions of his life.

His pediatrician recommended speech therapy or at least a test to see if he was in need of it back in November. With the holidays in full swing, I decided to wait till this month to start the process of getting him tested.

Luckily, my mom works for an early childhood learning center where they offer these exact services! Now, if you’re a a mom who is new to the testing world let me be the first to tell you that you are in a long journey ahead of you! The requirements aren’t too crazy and they may vary from state to state, but I’d like to share our journey with you so you’re a little more prepared for the speech journey you’re about to embark on in the next few weeks to months.

1. Make an official appointment.

I was lucky in being able to skip this first pre-evaluation phase of the process. Unfortunately, COVID restrictions do not allow the learning center to allow in-person pre-evaluation consultations, so I was about to go two full weeks before I could begin the process due to the fact I wasn’t available at the time they had an opening. I may have been lucky enough to skip the pre-evaluation phase because of being the daughter of my mom (connections help!). Everyone in the building practically watched me grow up and become the mom I am today; but I was ultimately asked if the pediatrician recommended speech therapy or if it was my request. I believe I was able to skip this portion, since it was requested by the pediatrician.

If you’re about to begin the journey of speech therapy, count on this evaluation as being the first appointment you actually need to complete after giving a school a call.

2. Hearing & Vision Screening

After your official pre-evaluation screening, you and your child will be invited into the school for a vision and hearing screening. At this appointment, you’ll be asked to bring a variety of documents for enrollment as well.

The items I had to bring included the following:

• Driver’s License
• Child’s Birth Certificate
• Proof of Address (Utility bills work best)
• Registration Form

The tests that are done for the vision and hearing are extremely simple!

For the hearing test, an instrument extremely similar to a newborn hearing test is inserted into each of your child’s ears. They are in your child’s ears for about 10 seconds and then a smiley face will show up on the screen. My little guy is three years old, so it took a bit of convincing to allow them to leave the ear piece in his ear. Once he understood that it wouldn’t hurt him, he was okay with the adults to do what they needed to do.

The vision test was extremely simple too! My son sat in my lap and was instructed to look at this little bird that was projected in these googles that the adult who was testing him was peering through! My son was extremely excited to see a bird flying in front of him.

My son passed the vision and hearing screening, so the next step was to participate in the actual evaluation.

3. Official Evaluation

For the official evaluation, you want to set aside two hours for the evaluators to see how your child interacts with you and what they are instructed to do. Unfortunately, the evaluations are not currently being done in person due to COVID precautions, but they are being conducted virtually. My son was asked to do a variety of things like color, draw pictures, stack blocks, piece together puzzles, play in a pretend kitchen, talk about his breakfast. There is no formal procedure to this portion. The evaluators want to see how your child talks and interacts with different items.

At the end of the evaluation, the evaluators informed me that they recommend some speech help and I was given another appointment slot to discuss his IEP (individualized education program). My appointment is set for February and I can’t wait to see what type of help my son can receive for his speech!

For a mother who may be going through this journey, please know that you are not alone! There are so many resources to help you and your child to improve their speech! Ultimately, you can help improve your child’s speech by taking this first step of officially getting them tested. While you’re in the testing process, always read to your child to end the day. A strong sense of vocabulary and literacy is good for the brain!

Let me know in the comment section down below if you have any helpful tips and tricks when it comes to speech! I can’t wait to keep you all informed on his journey!