Talk to your speech pathologist about your concerns.  Your child’s therapy plan may need to be altered or there could be other factors limiting your child’s progress in therapy such as consistency of attendance, time of the therapy session, general health and homework completion.

You should see changes in your child’s communication and receive feedback from other people such as his/her classroom teacher.  Your speech pathologist will also highlight progress in therapy and when your child has achieved set therapy goals.

Clinic based therapy is fantastic for parents who are able to attend as they can observe their child in therapy and openly discuss how their child is going at home directly with their speech pathologist.  Our school based therapy model can also work particularly well for parents who are unable to attend, but want their child to receive treatment at school during school hours.

Generally, we suggest 15 minutes of therapy 4-5 times a week which equals over an hour of speech homework per week.  We find that when we aim for 2-3 sessions, only 1 session is usually completed, so it’s better to aim high for 4-5 sessions allowing for busy weekends, illness and special events which means that at least 3 sessions will be conducted at home.

Make sure your classroom teacher is aware that your child is accessing speech pathology intervention.  Most teachers are extremely supportive and will be happy to discuss options to create a balance between class homework and speech pathology homework.

Discuss all concerns including therapy affordability with your speech pathologist.  Options such as fortnightly therapy, group therapy as well as maintenance programs at home are viable alternatives to individual therapy sessions when prescribed by your speech pathologist.

There is evidence that bilingualism does not cause any difficulties with language development. We know that because bilingual children do not have such problems any more frequently that their monolingual counterparts.  However, there is evidence that some 10% of children have difficulties with speech or language and need professional help. Bilingual children are not exempt from this.  If bilingualism does not cause language-related developmental problems, then stopping one of the languages is not going to fix the problem.  The literature suggests that families continue to speak both languages at home even with children who are language delayed.

We usually suggest 12 sessions per block of therapy.  Depending on factors such as your child’s severity, responsiveness to treatment, therapy attendance and follow up at home, he or she may require just the one block of therapy or possibly more.  Your speech pathologist will keep you informed regarding therapy progress and usually at the 6 week mark, a discussion will occur regarding future therapy planning.

It is difficult to tell whether a child with delayed speech is a late bloomer, has an expressive language delay or an underlying motor speech delay.  That’s why it’s worth seeking help.  Earlier intervention provides better outcomes for children who are language delayed.  And if your child is simply a late talker, any extra language stimulation will not harm them in any way.

There are a wide range of factors associated with communication delays including:

• Developmental delay
• Hearing difficulties or hearing loss
• Environmental deprivation where a child is in an environment which is speech and language poor
• Auditory processing disorder where there is a problem with decoding of speech sounds
• Acute medical illness can impact speech and language development
• Structural problems such as a cleft lip or cleft palate can inhibit the development of speech sounds
• Apraxia of speech is a specific speech disorder where the child has difficulty sequencing and executing movements for speech
• Family history of communication difficulties