Blue Water Speech Therapy

We’ve all probably heard these well-meaning comments that are frequently said to parents. I get it, people want to be supportive- but these comments can actuall...y have a negative impact and prevent parents from seeking evaluations for their children. These comments also insinuate needing support or having delays is bad and should be avoided at all costs- when really we should be supportive of parents getting their child support! Intervention and evaluations are a GOOD thing. Giving a child a means to communicate from the ages of 1-4 is a GOOD thing. So let’s make it happen!

Wait and See- a common (and OUTDATED!!!) approach when kids show initial signs of delays. Let’s just give them some more time and then revisit, But they’re... just so young! They just need more time, or worse Therapy doesn’t do anything until after 3 years+ (FALSE!!) And therapists everywhere are saying Don’t wait- but why? Why do we say this when we know it’s stressful for parents to hear? We say this because we want to set kids up for success! Because waiting can mean widening the gap between where a kid is functioning and what is typical for their age. Because we want them to be able to communicate now! Here’s an example: Jenny’s parents are concerned about her language skills when she’s 18 months of age. She has 3 words, she’s pretty far off the average of 50 words but she’s so close to the milestone which is 10 words. The pediatrician says to wait and see and several friends have said it was fine. Jenny is a few months behind, no big deal. So Jenny’s parents decide to wait and see. Jenny turns 3 and she’s made a lot of progress- she now says 20 words! Her parents decide to get a speech and language evaluation and are shocked to learn she’s 18 months behind. They are even more surprised that speech therapy may last a long time because even if she makes 18 months of progress over the next 18 months of therapy- she’s still behind because typically developing kids also gained 18 months worth of skills. So essentially kids need to develop at 2X’s the rate of typical kids to catch up - and also why speech therapy is generally not a quick fix. I will add that it’s also possible that Jenny DOES catch up on her own. But personally I’d rather support Jenny so that she is able to communicate quickly and has support in place just in case she doesn’t catch up on her own.

I don’t post a lot of pictures of myself on social media, but when I published my website, the feedback was why is your photo so boring? How are people supposed to know how much fun you are? So, for my very first Instagram post, I thought I’d share a fun (slightly ridiculous) photo. If you’ve ever been to a therapy session with me, you will have seen my Blue Water game. For years, I’ve played this with almost every single kid the first time I meet them. Kids often don’t remember my name but they remember the blue water lady and they’re excited to come back. After years of being the blue water lady, Blue Water Speech Therapy was born.

Two presentations coming up!