Speech Therapy - Fresno,CA

Don't worry about how your daughter will do on the eval...any speech pathologist that works with young children will not expect your dd to be instantly comfortable with a stranger! Most of the eval will be talking to you, getting some development history, learning what your dd does say and when she says it. Some of the eval will be all about play, the speech path will likely bring some new toys that may help your dd "open up." No performance anxiety for a toddler!! She is who she is, and any good speech path will understand and respect that. If you have further questions, I am a speech path and would be happy to talk with you.

I wouldn't be that concerned. You daughter is not even two years old yet. She is still very young, and it is not unusual for kids that age to continue communicating in a way that has always worked for them- i.e. pointing, grunting, crying, etc. My 4 year old did not seem interested in verbally communicating until just recently. I even had her evaluated by a speech therapist about 6-8 months ago. The result was that she was with in the normal range for her developmental age group. Shortly aftwards, I began to notice a change for the better in her speech. Our school district won't even evaluate kids younger than 3. If you are really concerned, however, talk with your pediatrician. Your doctor will be able to help deteremine if there really is a delay or not. Good luck.

My husband works hand in hand with speech therapists, and the child needs to be evaluated to determine what the cause of the delay is before they can design a program for them. You should look into county services in your area. I know in most places services are free for the zero to three age group. You just need to call for an evaluation, and they will set you up. Early intervention is very important if there is an actual problem, so I would call right away. At the very least you may find out that there isn't a problem, and they can still give you ways to encourage her to use her words instead of grunting etc.

Trish,
My daughter is 6 and in Speech Therapy. She was part of the early intervention program, and I've been really pleased w/ the results. I'd give a call to your School District, and get a referral to the organization you should be working with for your daughter to be assessed and evaluated regarding their services. These are free services, and were really helpful to my daughter who had Speech Delay, and is talking a lot, finally!
I can't stress enough how important early intervention is. Of course, you could have her assessed and they say that there is nothing to worry about, if so great! If not you'll have her on track to be helped ASAP.
Regards,
D.

While I understand wanting to let your daughter develop at her own pace, I agree with the previous poster. It's important to determine why your daughter is not using speech to communicate. The treatment is different depending on the cause. For instance, my son has apraxia of speech. If a therapist used techniques for children with articulation problems, we wouldn't see much improvement. It may help you to read articles about typical speech development and the various speech disorders. When I realized my son wasn't following the typical path of speech development, I had him evaluated.

Good luck!

I would call your doctor and set up an appointment. It may just be that she is just quiet. My youngest daughter did not say much until she was about 2 because her older sister did all the talking for her. If you are not already, I would read for about 20 minutes every day to her. They say that kids pick up a lot from being read to. It might help to encourage her to talk also. I wouldn't pressure her to talk more though, sometimes they get wise to us and start to play the game. And when she does talk, give her lots of praise.