A few weeks ago, the evening before Take Your Child to Work Day, we received a call from my daughter CJ’s speech therapist, asking whether we’d mind if she brought her daughter to class the next day.

“Why would we mind?” I asked Kyle after he got off the phone.

He shrugged. “Privacy issues. Some people don’t want anyone to know their kid’s in therapy.”

Considering that we announced CJ’s entry into speech therapy in our holiday cards, we obviously don’t care about keeping that information private. In fact, if you give me half a chance, I’ll spend twenty minutes talking about how much speech therapy has helped her and what a pleasure the process has been.

CJ didn’t speak as early or as clearly as her sister Tacy did, but we didn’t start to wonder about it until she was about eighteen months old. When Tacy was eighteen months old, she could recognize (and say aloud) all of the capital letters, and she routinely spoke in complete sentences of four to six words. CJ, on the other hand, had a total vocabulary of a couple dozen words, none of which were easily understood.

We were concerned, but we didn’t want to be alarmist. So we waited, hoping that the fabled “language explosion” would happen any day.

But it didn’t happen. And after several more months of frustration – on CJ’s part and ours – I made the call to Child Find.

She was evaluated and determined to qualify for services – one hour of speech therapy each week. The therapist would come to our home to work with her.

Speech therapy was a big hit from the very beginning. Not only did CJ adore her therapist, but we saw immediate improvement in her vocabulary and her articulation. She went from single words to two and three word phrases and sentences within only a few weeks. Plus, we could understand what she was saying, which greatly decreased the tears and frustration as we were able to respond quickly and appropriately to her.

Only a few months after she started therapy, CJ was evaluated again to determine whether she would qualify for services after she turned three. Before age three, services are administered by the county; after age three, it’s transferred to the school district. If she qualified, she’d be placed in a pre-school class setting for an hour or two each week.

Although she had made great strides, based on her evaluation she did still qualify for services. Once she turned three, “Miss Jamie” would stop coming to our house each week, and CJ would participate in a small class (1:4 ratio) at a local elementary school twice a week instead.

During her last several weeks of at-home sessions, CJ grew increasingly inattentive to the activities directed by her therapist. Even though her therapist told us this behavior was normal – that CJ was ready to move on – I hoped that it wasn’t an indicator that she would be uncooperative in the new setting as well.

I needn’t have worried. From the very first class with “Miss Nicole”, CJ has done beautifully. She looks forward to each class, and she’s never cried – or even appeared the least bit unhappy – when I’ve waved goodbye and left her there.

Moreover, we continued to see great improvement in her speech and articulation. I truly enjoy taking her out on errands now; we laugh together and have actual conversations. She is a different child.

Granted, she still hasn’t yet caught up with her peers. Her social language isn’t on par – for example, she’s just now learning how to answer the question “What’s your name?” and she insists that SHE is six years old and that Tacy is three. And I still can’t understand her about 10-20% of the time.

But I wonder how far behind she would be if we hadn’t called to inquire about services. I’m so glad we didn’t wait any longer than we did. Given how much progress she’s made and how attached she’s become to her therapists, I’d gladly recommend Child Find to any parent who’s the least bit concerned about their child’s progress.

Popularity: 9% [?]