Private speech therapy - worth it?

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My DS is three in November and we’ve been on the waiting list for speech therapy since April. He’s had his first assessment but unfortunately wasn’t very well so wasn’t playing ball at all! He wouldn’t look at the assessors, said one word whilst we were there and refused to do anything. Typical when you’ve been waiting for an appointment for 4 months!

The assessor said that they would probably come and do a home assessment and then another in nursery. They said there’s a long waiting list so I’ve got no idea when these will be and it’s been almost a month already.

I’ve been looking at private speech therapy and in our area it’s looking like the average is about £120 for the initial assessment, then £70 an hour. Which seems crazy money but if it helps my son then I’d pay it.

Has anyone got any experience of private speech therapy? Is it worth it or should I just stay in the NHS queue? His speech is improving but there is an obvious delay when compared to his peers and I just want to do the right thing by him.

Thanks.

Yes do it! You will get tailored support and time. My DS had a mild issue which we sought private therapy for as we were told the wait would be 2-3 years by which time he’d have been 6/7

Thank you. That’s my concern really, that a minor issue will turn into a bigger one by the time we get an appointment.

He’s started putting three word sentences together and asking for help but gets a bit muddled when he wants something, like saying “do you want” instead of “I want”.

yes and its been fab for us but your LO sounds quite normal in terms of speech development, saying do you want instead of i want isnt unusual as far as i know

My LB is much younger than yours (now 19m) but we sought private speech therapy at 18m when he didn’t have any words at all. The private therapist spent nearly 3 hours assessing him at our home, and gave me really good techniques to work on with him. She also contacted nursery to get them to work with him too. It’s now 4 weeks later and his speech has improved loads - we now have 4 words and more variation in speech sounds etc.

However, on the nhs in that time we have waited for an appointment to see if he would be eligible for a referral to SLT, which he has now had (this week) and we’ll be added to the waiting list which currently stands at 5-6months. No actual help has yet been given to us.

For us, the progress we’ve made in these 4 weeks from 1 appointment (we are going to assess how much more help he is likely to need today), was absolutely worth the money. Obviously there’s a chance that he would have made that progress without any therapy but it feels like quite a coincidence that as soon as I started doing the therapy techniques with him that his speech has finally made some progress.

Our therapist seems to be really good at not pushing us for more appointments than we are comfortable paying for either.

We are really lucky that we can afford it and that it’s an option for us. I feel that if it is an option for you then it is absolutely worth it - the sooner you can catch your LO up to their peers the better in my opinion!

what are his issues? if his understanding is good and the issue is around speech sound production, then a good therapist can make a difference in a short time

if it is more around issues of understanding and communication, I probably would not. It's nothing that can be 'fixed' with therapy but there is a lot you can do to support him by the way you communicate with him. Check the Hanen books (It takes two).

He has loads of words but doesn’t speak in sentences. He’ll tell me that he wants something like ‘more crisps’ but you can’t really have a two-way conversation with him. His pronunciation of everything is really good and I understand everything he says to me.

The problem seems to be that every time he sees either a HV or the speech therapist he point blank refuses to say anything so it looks like he’s worse than he really is! I’ve tried to tell them what he can do but my input doesn’t seem to count for much unfortunately.

He can understand instructions to like - go and get that and put it in the bin, shoes on etc...

He can understand instructions to like - go and get that and put it in the bin, shoes on etc..

that's not age appropriate though but I guess you know that already. May make sense to get an assessment done in the first place to pinpoint where exactly needs help .

We used private and NHS and the private assessment was a lot more thorough.

my DCs needs are complex and we didn't go down the private therapy route as we needed to change the way we communicate with her (her understanding was very delayed too). the private Salt gave us good instructions as to what to change but it wasn't something that salt session could have fixed.

You’re right, we want to help him but we need to know what the problem is first, if there is one! We don’t know any children his age so we don’t really know what’s age appropriate or not.

His eye contact is great, knows his ABC and can identify letters, shapes and numbers.

I’ll definitely research private SLT in our area off the back of these comments. I really appreciate all your advice.

had nursery ever expressed concerns?

regarding Salt - this website lists registered/qualified Salts

beta.helpwithtalking.com/

@ShiftHappens yes it was nursery that advised us to speak to the HV about speech. He only goes for 5 hours a week but they have said he’s improved since the initial referral.

Hi all our son is 3 1/2 and has developed a stutter. We are looking for a good speech therapist who can help us. Any recommendations please . Thanks in advance