It's been about 4 months since Kayden has started speach therapy through the government. We got a call at the end of August for Kayden to start speach therapy again. Kayden speach therapy is different than private speech therapy, because it's government funded you don't get an appointment every single week and it's not consistent. What I mean by this is, he gets speach therapy in blocks of 6 weeks and then he gets a break. Kayden finished his speach therapy at the beginning of September and will start again at the end of November.
Kayden is going to a government-funded speech therapist and this has proven to be a lot better than the private speech therapy Kayden was going to before. His speech therapist is amazing and really takes her time with him. She is new to doing this but she has the most creative and fun ideas which keeps him engaged throughout the whole session.
When the session started again she did another evaluation and got an updated idea of what he was struggling with. Every session focuses on one speech issue. For instance, he was struggling with the s sound, one session really focused on him learning to make the sound. What I really liked is she had about four activities that she would do with him within the hour and it was a variety of games and books.
At the end of every session she would send us with homework. I will admit, Kayden was not excited about doing these activities at home. But I sat with him and made him do it, and it really paid off. It wouldn't take longer than five minutes a day, because after that he would start to get frustrated.
One of the things I was concerned about, was Kayden starting school. I didn't want him to go to school and not be able to communicate with his teachers, which would leave him more frustrated. There was an open house in October and I got to speak to the majority of his teachers, and all of them said they were able to understand him. Kayden has three teachers, his kindergarten teacher, teacher's assistant, and an early childhood educator. All three of these teachers informed me he was able to convey how he was feeling and there was never a time that they were unable to understand him. As a mother I was relieved. The teachers even requested a copy of his speech therapy assessment so they would work with him as well.
With Kayden in school, he has picked up a lot of new words and Concepts. He comes home and he is able to tell me about his day and all the fun things he learned. There are times when I don't understand what he is saying but those are far and few in-between now. The speech therapy classes along with him going to school has really help him with his speech and broaden his vocabulary. Speach therapy has really helped us as parents and as a family because not only has it help with Kayden's confidence it has helped us being able to communicate with him more effectively
Kayden will continue to go to speach therapy through this government funded program until he goes to senior kindergarten, at that point the school board will take over. I took speach therapy in my elementary school and I feel it really helped me. I was a little bit embarrassed because people would ask me where I was going and I would never tell them but looking back on it, I would get teased because I couldn't pronounce certain words correctly and that really bothered me as a child. I tried to draw on my experiences and I talked to Kayden about it and I don't make him feel like he is different. I let him know that he's going to learn more words and it's like a class and it's fun and that is always how he has looked at it
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