Should I consider private speech therapy for my toddler

[Honeyandlemonnn]

My DS is almost 29 months old. He had his 2 year review at the health visitor and it was stated that he scored very lowly on the communication part of the questionnaire. She also seemed concerned that he wasn't communicating in two worded sentences such as ' Mummy ball '. However i explained that he can say many many words but only says one word at a time for example if hungry will say 'eat' or pull me into the kitchen and say 'apple' or 'water' etc ....
His understanding seems good from my perspective, Most of the times when he is crying and unsettled i ask him 'whats wrong' and he will show me. He has started listen to instructions more recently, such as 'lets go' or 'put your shoes on' or 'lets go change nappy' etc. He also understands when i am telling him off and sometimes will listen.
Regardless the HV said they may refer him to a speech therapist and will let me know if that is the case. Only issue is she said the referral may take around 4/5 months.
Either way I feel like that will take a long time and if there is any speech delay related issues i would rather start working on them now instead of later. I am considering private speech therapy. I cant afford many sessions, maybe the most i can afford is an hour session every 2 weeks as they are expensive. I am not sure if this is enough to make a difference ? But even paying for these two sessions will be difficult financially but i am willing to do it if its for my sons development.
But on the other hand based on what i have written on his speech/ communication so far i am not sure if i should be patient and give him time instead of putting myself in any financial burden for something that may not even be an issue?

I can totally understand you not wanting to wait but before you pay for private SLT, I would go back to the HV and ask for a hearing test. Sometimes things like Glue Ear can cause speech delay and any SLT will have wanted your DS to have had a hearing test before they see them, whether they're private or NHS.

The next thing I'd do is this progress checker from Talking Point who are a SLT charity. If there are any concerns, it will tell you what to do at the end. They also have a useful helpline, if you want some advice from someone who knows what they're in about and not just me!

And lastly, you might want to do the MChat Test. You'll probably get a whole bunch of MNers on here saying that their LO had speech delay and are now fine but for us it was an indication of ASD, although there were other indications.

Sorry @Honeyandlemonnn forgot to answer the bit about paying private.

If you've had the hearing test and it's normal, and the progress checker says that there are concerns, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to get in touch with a couple of SLTs and see how much it would be for something like an assessment and 4-6 sessions?

most NHS speech and language therapy services have to see children in 3-4 months and rather than waiting for the HV to do it, you can as nearly all will accept referrals from parents (referral forms are usually on the website).

any speech therapy will focus on giving you strategies…. kind of like training parents. You might be able to learn lots yourself before seeing an SLT….Hanen centre and bbc tiny happy people are great for this.

We ve just seen an SLT privately just for one session and they confirmed that the HV team were underestimating how bad his delay is and that there might be something else going on ( we re looking at August 23 for the NHS to do anything for him) .

They gave us lots of advice just from one appointment and confirmed as he's 24 months that due to how his attention is that it wouldn't be worth having weekly or even more often sessions until we ve gotten there with his pre verbal skills more. So honestly you could contact private SLTs just for an assessment and if you can't afford from than that (we paid £140 and we re up north but I believe it's quite similar throughout England) it gives you in writing to get fighting more with the NHS so when you do see one they aren't just going to hand you strategies to try when you ve already been doing it all.

My son was language delayed. I didn't have a problem getting services, but as PP says, getting an assessment in writing is the best leverage you have to convince the NHS how serious the problem is.

SLT really helped my son a lot, but it was still a hard slog in the early years because the language delay made it harder for him to learn how to read, which set him back in all of his classes.

When I was younger, my younger brother had a similar situation. Our parents couldn't afford frequent visits to private speech therapy, so they decided to attend once every 3 weeks and work with him at home in between to make up for the infrequent attendance. They were wondering if it would be possible to help him in this way. They talked to him much more often, especially face to face, they believed that this way it would be easier for him to imitate the movement of his parents' lips. They also gave him cards (like these) with words, colors and pictures, so that he himself would try to learn and pronounce them, and parents would correct him if he made a mistake. You know, after 3-4 months he could speak correctly and it became much easier for him to communicate not only with his family, but also with other people. I can't guarantee you the same result, but you can give it a try.

Have you decided what to do yet @Honeyandlemonnn?

Thanks for the responses. For now i am still considering all my options and still deciding

@Barryberry Thanks for this perspective. I was considering doing this myself which i have already started. I guess i will be patient and see what improvements he makes whilst deciding on what to do