speech therapy question

DS is 15 months. I had his 15 mo well today. he has no words, not even mama/dada. he has great eye contact, points, babbles, waves bye and claps, but no words. so ped felt he should be evaluated by EI for speech therapy, gave me the number of an agency to call.
so i spoke to the agency today, the guy told me that based on what i am saying, he asked me a bunch of questions, he doesnt think ds will qualify, but i can definitly do the eval. i am going to, i feel like i have nothing to lose, and ped thinks i should.
so heres my questions
1. the guy from the agency told me theres no minimum wait time between evals, meaning if he gets denied now, i can re-eval at 18 months. for some reason, i thought you had to wait 3 or 6 months, but he assured me no. is this correct?
2. the agency told me they will contact the county,- i'm in nassau- and someone from the county will call me, shoudl be within the week. what exactly happens next?
3. do you think DS will qualify?

Re: speech therapy question

im also sending you FM-

a service coordinator will call you to set up an evaulation.

the evaluation has to be done by a special ed evaluator (who acts like a general, jack of all trades kind of person) and the domain in question- in your case, a speech therapist. they will arrange for a time and day to come to your house together and assess your munchkin.

the special ed evaluator will assess and determine whether she thinks that your little one needs education services and/or an evaluation from a different domain (PT, OT, etc). the speech evaluator will determine if your little one needs speech therapy.

the process of getting the eval is pretty quick- and then you will have a meeting with your service coordinator and maybe the head of the agency where your evaluators came from. the eval and meeting are all supposed to be done in a timely manner- i think soup to nuts, in 30 days from the day you call.


from what youre saying, i dont think your little one will qualify for speech. Unless he has a delay in another area.

to qualify for services in one domain (ie, Just Speech) you need to be really delayed in that area. if you need services in two domains, you need to be a little bit delayed in 2 areas. IE, my little guy had a bilingual special ed eval done, and a physical therapy eval. he was one full year behind PT wise, so he qualified.

i would personally wait a little longer before i'd call- however, if youre getting nervous and losing sleep, id get the eval now. at the very least, you could get suggestions on what you can do to encourage expressive language development

if you test him and he doesnt qualify, im pretty sure youd have to wait 6 months to re evaluate him.

let us know how this turns out!
and FM me if you have any more questions- this article may be helpful- im not suggesting that youre not an active parent!!! just think its a good piece of info
this is an article that might be helpful


heres another one-

Message edited 7/17/2012 9:34:05 PM.

Re: speech therapy question

Just had DS evaluated last week. He is 2 and has literally 4-5 words and didn't qualify. Even at 2, their comprehension of what you are saying is weighed much heavier than what they can verbalize. He scored a 92, needed a 69 to qualify.

I would be shocked if a 15mo qualified, but it definitely doesn't hurt to him them evaluated.

I am in Suffolk, but yes, after the initial phone call, your county liaison (forget the formal term) will call to set up an initial appt. At that appt you do a lot of paperwork, pick the agency you want to do the eval, and then within a few days, a person from the agency will call to set up the actual eval.

Re: speech therapy question

DS was similar, did not qualify at 15 months but did at 18 months. I'd wait until 18 months, at which point they are held to more difficult standards.

Re: speech therapy question

Re: speech therapy question

Re: speech therapy question

I had my son evaluated in Nassau at 18 months and again at 27 months. DS didn't qualify both times b/c although his speech was borderline, he scored high in everything else. There is no limit as to how many times you want your child evaluated but they base their evaluations on a range of months; 18 months, 24 months then 30 months. so if your child doesn't qualify at 18 months...there is no difference in their evaluation until 24 months.

ETA: Does your DS point and grunt? if he uses non-expressive communication, he most likely will not qualify unless he has another delay.

Message edited 7/18/2012 10:08:29 AM.