New Speech Delay Study

by Gordy Rogers, M.S. CCC-SLP normal speech milestones Parents' Corner Speech and Hearing Disorders Speech Therapy for Kids Speech Therapy Techniques

When the American Medical Association Speaks, We Listen          

 

I’ve been quite affected by a recent research study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The research aimed at answering this question: did the Covid-19 pandemic affect the rate of diagnosis of speech delay in children up to the age of five? 

The answer was a clear yes. The pandemic did see a great frequency of diagnosis of speech delay in children.

This post is dedicated to acknowledging this reality and proposing solutions to the collateral effect of the pandemic.

Study Key Points:

First, the study was huge. The authors’ analysis covered almost 2.5 million children. They were broken into four groups, one year-olds, two year-olds, three year-olds and four year-olds.

Second, the results were statistically significant. The researchers can be very confident that their findings are not due to chance and are in fact a representation of reality.

Third, they found increased diagnosis across all four age groups analyzed. 

Solutions:

Now that we understand this situation is real and the pandemic is the likely cause of a greater prevalence of speech delay, let’s talk about what we can do to address it.

When a parent, teacher or pediatrician first raises a concern about a child’s speech development, the first step is always an evaluation with a licensed speech-language pathologist. Should the evaluation yield a diagnosis of speech delay, the next urgent step is to begin a course of therapy.

For decades, we’ve known of the existence of critical periods of speech development.  The periods that children are expected to acquire given skills by a certain age. If a child misses these critical windows of development, rest assured speech therapy has been proven to catch children up.  However, the sooner a child can be seen, the better the child’s prognosis.

Once a decision is made to get an evaluation, the next question to answer is where will we get these services? Luckily, there are many ways to do this but they all require a different procedure and have their strengths and drawbacks.

Options to explore:

See below for a list of these options which may be dependent on age, income or employment requirements:

This list is not absolutely exhaustive and other options that may be available to you.  Here are a few examples:

Grant funding
TriCare (military insurance)
Therapeutic day schools – more significant developmental or medical needs

Connect:

At Speech Buddies we are committed to providing superior speech therapy solutions for all involved in the process (children, parents, caregivers, educators and fellow therapists).

Our Speech Buddies Tools have strong data to support their use with a wide range of speech delays. We also offer a free online directory for speech therapists nationwide on Speech Buddies Connect.

Lastly, we know the importance of setting up speech therapy promptly following a speech delay diagnosis.  Please feel free to email us at info@speechbuddies.com for guidance on how to get started. We’d welcome the opportunity to point you in the right direction of either local, regional or national resources that you’d have available to you.

 

By Gordy Rogers, M.S. CCC-SLP

 

 


Time-Series Analysis of First-Time Pediatric Speech Delays From 2018 to 2022

December 4, 2023 Brianna M. Goodwin Cartwright, MS1; Peter D. Smits, PhD1; Sarah Stewart, MD1; et al Patricia J. Rodriguez, PhD, MPH1; Samuel Gratzl, PhD1; Charlotte Baker, DrPH, MPH, CPH1; Nicholas Stucky, MD, PhD1
JAMA Pediatr. 2024;178(2):193-195. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.5226

 

Making the Most of Your School-Based Speech Services

by Gordy Rogers, M.S. CCC-SLP Parents' Corner School Speech and Hearing Disorders Speech Therapy Techniques

Congratulations! You’ve made it off a waiting list for school-based speech therapy services for your child. Through no fault of their own, many school districts provide speech therapy in groups of three to five children – in some states, the legal maximum can be six.

You’re grateful for the chance to have the support for your child’s speech challenges, but may feel that it could be challenging to address your child’s specific speech challenge efficiently in a group of other children who also have their own very specific challenges and goals.

As a speech pathologist who has worked in both schools and in private practice, I emphasize supplementing your school-based services with home-based work to help your child reach their speech goals.

School-based speech pathologists are dedicated and passionate professionals. They’re not only educators but also pillars of the communities they serve.

However, they’re often faced with huge caseloads that prevent them from going that “extra mile” for your child. That’s why it is critical for parents to be empowered to support their own child’s speech journey directly.

Speech Buddies provide a solution to do that in two key ways:

1) They provide a specially designed and clinically proven way to cue your child to place and move his/her tongue exactly as it should for those hard-to-learn speech sounds that develop in late pre-kindergarten and early school years (e.g. R, L, SH, CH and S)

2) They come with actionable support and learning plans that empower you to be the most effective partner in your child’s therapy process.

Each speech sound requires your child to place the tongue specifically within the mouth. For example, with the commonly disarticulated S sound, if they place the tongue too far back or too far forward in their mouth, the S won’t come out right.

Using a hand-held delivery mechanism, the S Speech Buddy provides a clear and consistent target within the mouth for your child to hit each time. In many cases, Speech Buddies provide that “aha!” moment early in the therapy process, where your child just gets it.

This can be enormously motivating for your child and for you, and is the first crucial step toward remediating a speech challenge.

But, because your child has said that speech sound in the old, incorrect way literally hundreds of thousands of times in his or her young life, it’s essential you follow up with diligent practice so this new, correct way of speaking can quickly become habit.

We know that school-based group therapy essentially means that your child gets 5 to 10 minutes of directed attention for his or her specific speech goals.  Speech Buddies tools come with a comprehensive lesson plan to help support your child.

Speech pathologists welcome parent involvement, but school-based therapists can’t give 50-70 parents a home lesson plan each week. Our lesson plans provide a clear roadmap for success and help make your child’s speech pathologist’s job easier.

If your child is in a group of three at school and is in two 30-minute speech sessions per week, your child is really getting 20-minutes of directed speech therapy per week. So, even twenty solid minutes of home-based work with your child effectively doubles the practice your child is getting; forty minutes triples this time!

And many studies throughout the field of speech pathology have confirmed that parents can only help their children meet their goals faster.

 

 

 

Expert corner: Frequent ear infections in children

Expert corner: Frequent ear infections in children

by Noel Hartman Expert Corner Hearing and Speech Hearing Loss Speech and Hearing Disorders

Frequent ear infections in children: Signs for parents with concerns about speech and language development.

Ear tube surgery – it is one of the most common childhood surgeries.

According to the New York Times, nearly seven-hundred thousand children a year in the United States have tiny plastic tubes inserted into their eardrums.

“No one wants to see a child in pain,” said renowned pediatrician and parenting expert Dr. Jen Trachtenberg. “The main reason to get the tubes is that it helps with hearing loss. When you have the tubes, all that fluid and pus comes out of the ear, therefore, you don’t have the pressure and the temporary hearing loss.”

Although ear tube surgery may be among the most common surgeries for children, Trachtenberg says the number of such procedures being performed is excessive (“doctors are doing too many,” she says) and that parents should think twice before they “jump the gun” and opt for ear tubes.

Dr. Jen Trachtenberg, expert pediatrician in NYC

Dr. Jen Trachtenberg, expert pediatrician in NYC

“I never take it lightly,” says Trachtenberg. “I would never jump to just doing tubes surgery on a child. That said, not all infections need to be treated with antibiotics.”

Doctors say that ear infections are one of the most common childhood ailments, with eighty percent of kids experiencing at least one instance of infection by they time they turn three years of age. Ear infections also account for more than 30 million doctor visits a year, so the potential for excessive use of the ear tube procedure would seem to be possible.

What, then, should a conscientious parent do if he or she is considering ear tube surgery for his or her child?

First, remember that, if left untreated, otitis media (the common ear infection) can lead to loss of hearing in your child and delays in terms of speech development. Dr. Trachtenberg says it’s more important to focus on the length of a child’s ear infection, in terms of how long the fluid remains in the ear rather than  just the number of ear infections that may occur. “This is why continuity of care and having a primary pediatrician is so helpful,” she says.

According to the American Academy of Otolaryngology (A.A.O.), parents should not opt for ear tube surgery in otherwise healthy children who have had just one episode of ear fluid lasting less than three months. On its website, the A.A.O. says that infections of “short duration” will probably go away on their own.

However, if there is evidence of speech delay, then opting for ear tube surgery could be the right decision for your child. As for how much hearing loss is required before parents should consider themselves to have reached this point, some physicians say that early ear tube surgery can be considered in kids who register a hearing loss of forty or more decibels.

As for signs of what parents should look for, Trachtenberg says that persistent fluid and persistent hearing loss would mean that parents or caregivers should ask their pediatricians about referring them to an ear, nose and throat (ENT) doctor, who specializes in the ear tube procedure.

If it does come to getting the surgery, doctors say parents should be aware that the procedure involves general anesthetic, but is also generally an easy one to carry out.

“About fifteen minutes,” says Tranchtenberg, when asked how long the surgery lasts. “Kids in general tolerate it very well. Not much pain. Your child may get antibiotic drops for the ear. Generally they do really well.”

photo credit: Doctor Aunt via photopin (license)

 

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Do Ear Infections Affect Speech Development?

Do Ear Infections Affect Speech Development?

by Noel Hartman Hearing and Speech Hearing Loss Language Development Speech and Hearing Disorders

Ear infections and speech development: good news for youngest kids, but parents still have plenty to fret about.

Although a new study published in Pediatrics shows a sharp decline in the rate of childhood ear infections among kids in the first year of life, there are still plenty of children (and parents) who have to struggle through an ailment that remains stubbornly common — and, if left untreated, ear infections affect speech, lead to hearing loss or an overall delay a child’s speech and language development.

Stine Jewett, a mother of two who lives with her husband near San Francisco, knows all about the trials that come with recurrent ear infections. Last year, her son, Thomas, developed an alarming streak of ear infections at the rate of one almost every other month. According to the meticulous records she kept of Thomas’s condition, Jewett says that her son suffered from five incidents of acute otitis media — the common ear infection — in less than one calendar year.

“It would always happen on the weekend,” Jewett recalled. “There would be no symptoms leading up to it and then, always early Saturday night, going to get the ear drops.”

At the beginning of this period, Jewett says that she and her husband had no idea what they were in for. Their other child, an elder daughter named Anna, had never come down with an ear infection in her entire life. Also, Thomas’s age made him a bit old to be so vulnerable to ear infections, not to say a long and — for his parents — bewildering series of them.

Stine Jewett and her son Thomas

Stine Jewett and her son Thomas

“Whenever I saw a runny nose, I would worry,” Jewett said. “What was most puzzling was that he didn’t start getting them until he was three. Most kids start getting them around one. He never had any until he was three, and so it was not a typical case. The doctors really didn’t have anything to say.”

And, after a while, Jewett ran out of patience with the antibiotic remedies that Thomas’s physicians were prescribing. After some initial reluctance, she opted for a procedure that involved putting her son under total anesthetic and inserting tubes in his ear canals, so that the middle part of that organ can drain the fluids that cause infections in the first place.

“I was hesitant,” she recalled. “I actually wanted to avoid [the tubes] for some reason. In surgery, they put him completely under so that he will lie still. But that’s only for children. An adult getting this would not be under. So that was scary. But what basically pushed me over was, ok, he’s on antibiotics again. Is he going to get resistant to antibiotics? What if he gets really, really sick. A friend who was an ENT was like, just do it. Now I wish we had done it sooner. Looking back, I feel bad that I thought he was just being difficult or grumpy.”

Ear Infections Affect Speech and Language Development

In the days just before his surgery, Thomas was tested by an audiologist who found enough congestion to account for low hearing loss in the boy’s left ear and moderate to severe hearing loss in his right. The severity of hearing loss can fluctuate, however, due to the varying levels of fluid build up, which can make it even more difficult for parents who are trying to figure out their child’s inflamed level of irritability or grouchiness. A person speaking in a clear, normal voice will sound like a whisper to a young child with enough congestion to block the normal passage of sound waves.

Vocal Hoarseness Speech Therapy?

Vocal Hoarseness Speech Therapy?

by Gordy Rogers, M.S. CCC-SLP Speech and Hearing Disorders Uncategorized

One question I quite frequently get in my practice as a speech-language pathologist is how to deal with vocal hoarseness or raspiness — is there vocal hoarseness speech therapy? Getting a “raspy voice” is incredibly common in both children and adults. I’m sure the reader has experienced this multiple times in his or her life. At times vocal hoarseness or raspiness is temporary and something you can easily attribute to excess shouting at say a sporting event or a viral infection; in other cases, the cause is mysterious. Also, sometimes the hoarseness and raspiness can be temporary and responsive to the vocal hygiene strategies discussed below. In other cases, the hoarseness or raspiness is chronic and in need of attention from an experienced speech-language pathologist with knowledge of voice disorders and/or an ear-nose-throat (ENT) doctor. This post is intended to give you a sense of how you would potentially manage such vocal hoarseness or raspiness.

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Effect of Stroke on Speech and Language

Effect of Stroke on Speech and Language

by Courtenay M. News Speech and Hearing Disorders Speech Disorders

Effect of Stroke on Speech and Language

Effect of Stroke on Speech and Language. Image courtesy of www.ndtv.com

Whether or not you are a country music fan, you may have heard recently that grammy-winning country singer Randy Travis has been left unable to speak or sing due to a stroke he suffered last year. After his stroke in July 2013, he was able to restore much of his motor functions with physical therapy, but has not regained his speech. According to the National Stroke Association, stroke, or cerebrovascular accident (CVA) usually affects one side of the brain. Movement and sensation for one side of the body is controlled by the opposite side of the brain. What does this mean? If a stroke affects the left side of the brain, there will be problems with the right side of the body.

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Celebrate Better Hearing and Speech Month in May

Celebrate Better Hearing and Speech Month in May

by Courtenay M. News Speech and Hearing Disorders

Better Hearing & Speech Month

May is Better Hearing & Speech Month. Image courtesy of American Speech-Hearing-Language Association

Let’s celebrate Better Hearing and Speech month! We at Speech Buddies celebrate this month as an excellent opportunity to raise awareness about speech, hearing and communication disorders, and to explore treatment and speech therapy options. Ever since 1927, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has celebrated Better Hearing and Speech Month (BHSM) by providing opportunities that raise awareness about communication disorders and promote treatments that can improve the quality of life for those who experience problems with speaking, understanding, or hearing.
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