Particularly since the Great Recession of 2008-2009, the public options available to parents to cover the costs of speech therapy have been gradually tightening. I have seen many children in my practice who previously would easily qualify for services, but now are turned away, making the question of “how to pay for speech therapy” even more challenging.
Here at Speech Buddies we frequently get questions about Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs): is speech therapy FSA eligible, does HSA cover speech therapy? Some families currently have these accounts available to them and others are considering adding them, where available, to potentially reduce the cost of their family’s health care. Since speech therapy would generally be considered a covered expense (i.e. you would be able to use HSA or FSA to pay for speech therapy), these accounts could be a great way to defray overall costs. And with the enrollment period for 2016 fast approaching, a few minutes of planning may unlock significant savings for your family. This post is dedicated to shedding light on these options – as usual, there is some complexity here – so families needing to access speech therapy services can do so with a greater sense of empowerment.
Once you’ve had your child assessed for a speech or language disorder and you’ve been told of the various goals that need to be targeted, you might find yourself throwing your hands in the air, baffled as to where to begin. It can certainly be overwhelming to wrap your head around a comprehensive treatment plan for your child. What speech language goals should be targeted first? And, how can I, a motivated parent, get involved? This post is dedicated to empowering parents in becoming more active partners in both the selection and implementation of appropriate goals for your child’s treatment plan. By understanding the rationale for as well as tips for how to best target each goal, in terms of overall child language development, you can be better equipped to support your child and help move him or her through these goals more efficiently.
Whether your child is in private therapy or is getting services in a school or via, say, your local Early Intervention (EI) program, it is always a good idea to use the resources around you to maximize your child’s therapy gains. Unless your child is very young or home-schooled, he or she is going to spend a huge amount of time in school. This post is dedicated to the notion that therapy and the activities of daily life of your child, here school, don’t have to be so separate. Use the tips provided below to maximize the gains your child can make in speech therapy. Think of it as leverage for your time. You only have a limited amount of time with your speech therapist, and yet so much time outside of therapy. Applied consistently, these simple principles can perhaps double the value of your therapy.
You, as a parent, know that your young child could use a boost in his or her language development, but your local Early Intervention (EI) program has deemed your child not sufficiently delayed to warrant funded therapy services. So what do you do now that you’ve been denied Early Intervention Services? This is an agonizing question to have to face. Unfortunately, as a consequence of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, many states sharply cut back on available funds for EI. I thought this was a terrible decision. What better investment in society is there than in the very young? And the research is strong and clear: intervening early in a child’s development can have an outsized impact on their overall development.
