Speech therapy - is it worth it?

[Toystory123]

Hi, has anyone paid for private speech therapy and what has been your experience? My DC is 2.4 and only has about 15 words and these include animal noises. Out of these words there aren’t any naming words (apart from ma and dada) eg won’t ask for ‘drink’, can’t name any toys ‘car’, ‘ball’ etc. I’ve self referred to SALT and done various ‘talking’ courses provided by local children centre. I work in a SEN school so didn’t find the children centre course teaching me anything new and the SALT said I interact with DC very well and they wouldn’t be doing anything different from me and have moved the goalposts to DC being 3 yrs old. I’m really aware as to how basic his language is and have not seen any similar threads where the DC have so few words. My DC understanding is okish- can follow basic familiar instructions but doesn’t have the understanding of if I said we’re going to the park, for example, of that having any actual meaning to them. Nursery noted that his language development was behind at his 2 year review but don’t seem overly concerned and he is making a wider variety of noises now. He attends a music class however which is ran by an ex SALT and she is encouraging me to push for referrals etc (which simply aren’t there). Really long winded but my question is has anyone been in a similar position and did your DC speech come on naturally? I’m tempted to get an assessment done privately but don’t have a ton of disposable income and don’t want to be paying for a service if it’s not needed and I just need to be a little more patient

Hi, my DC has has private speech therapy for over 2 years now. I'd say it's definitely made a difference, DC is however likely to be on the spectrum and has an understanding+ speaking delay. Definitely lots of progress made but we still have some way to go

The speech therapy wa every useful in training us parents, however as you work in a SEN school, you might already have that knowledge.

There are probably online checkers that will tell you how your chillis measuring up, but I would have thought a 2.4 year old would understand being told they're going to the park. I'm not an expert though but I'd say check to see how your child is tracking as that will help.