My daughter is 2 1/2. She has had delayed speech, and has been in an early childhood development program for about a year now.
She's had evaluations and her hearing is fine, vocal cords are fine, she's very healthy. She just babbled a lot. My husband didn't talk until he was over 3 years old, and I didn't talk much until well after 2, probably closer to 3.
My daughter is doing SO much better with this Early Childhood Development lady coming out every other week. She is still behind, but she's progressing wonderfully and even the lady has been saying so. She now signs and says "cookie" and "more" (though 'cookie' usually means just that she's hungry). She also says many other words (mama, dada, kitty, meow, Finn (the dogs name), Mae Mae (the cats name), beep beep, night night, all done, bear, there, ball, book, baby, duck, outside, she just learned "NO" which is a fun one, she's said grandma and grandpa a few times, she's signed and said "milk" a few times but still learning that one. She barks for dog, etc. I know there are more but I can't think of it right now.)
Anyways I've never been worried about her speech because I know all kids go at their own pace, and with myself and my husband having been slower with speech at her age as well, it didn't phase me at all. I've talked to several other mothers who have children her age or older who are the same, and even my electrophysiologist said his 3 year old son mostly just babbles still too.
My problem is the nurse practitioner who has been seeing her. (She saw one pediatrician, who went on maternity leave, went to the one who covered her, then when they left we went back to the original who was back from maternity leave, then she quit so they switched us to the NP instead of a pediatrician.) The NP has seen her a total of maybe 4 times. (Health check ups/shots/etc) And she goes based just on the evaluations we have to fill out. She's all paranoid because my daughter's still scoring low with her speech. (Like she's magically going to be 100% caught up?) and on the paper she also scored low on "problem solving" because OVER HALF of the questions were speech related! So now she's saying she's too far behind in that too even though I pointed out the questions were all speech related. It's hard to score high in those when she's behind on speech...
Anyways she wants us to go see a speech therapist every week on top of the appointments every other week that we have been doing. (They were once a month or every 3 weeks when school was out since it's through the ISD) and made a big deal about the fact that she's still behind. (Said nothing positive about her making so much progress.)
I talked to the early childhood care provider who has been working with my daughter's speech the past year since, in my opinion, she knows way more of my daughter's speech after coming over at least 2 times a month vs the NP who has seen her maybe 4 times total...) and she said that she isn't too worried and that my daughter's speech is improving. But she said she'd bring their own speech therapist at one of my next appointments.
Before they were able to set that up, I was getting phone calls from the other speech therapist that the NP was pushing. As soon as I answered (I waited to talk to the one girl before I was going to set anything up) they gave me some sarcasm. Then when I told them that she is seeing someone for her speech already and that she was going to bring her speech therapist out. They seemed upset by that, and asked me for the lady's full name. I gave it to them. Then they hung up and about 10 minutes later called back complaining that "she's not a speech therapist". I told them no, she's not, but she's been working with her speech for months now, and that she is GOING to bring her speech therapist out next time. They then told me "once a month isn't good enough" so I told them that it's every other week, not once a month. It was only a little less when school was out of session. Their response was just "well every other week might not be enough." I was getting irritated that they were trying to push me too much, so I told them what I told the lady she's been seeing. I don't mind them coming out more often if they think its needed or want to, but since I've been working with them with her for about a year, I'm sticking with them.
So that was last week. This week I get a call from the NP office... saying they got the evaluations from the lady that I've been working with and need to set up an appointment with her to go over them. I am going over the evaluations with the lady who does them and she has amazing communication. So I'm getting kind of irritated at how the NP is treating us.
I have her and one other person getting mad at me for being upset about it and not wanting to stress it out MORE. And then I have a majority of familly (my mother and MIL both said we were both like this at her age, or even more behind..) as well as other professionals, nurses, and DOCTORS telling me she's absolutely fine and not to worry about it because all kids develop at their own pace.
I was wondering other people's thoughts on this and tips on how to handle the NP. I'm 90% sure we will be switching to a different office or at very least the new doctor they just hired in, an actual pediatrician instead of a NP. (Not dissing NP, they work hard but they dont specialize in kids like a pediatrician does.)
She's had evaluations and her hearing is fine, vocal cords are fine, she's very healthy. She just babbled a lot. My husband didn't talk until he was over 3 years old, and I didn't talk much until well after 2, probably closer to 3.
My daughter is doing SO much better with this Early Childhood Development lady coming out every other week. She is still behind, but she's progressing wonderfully and even the lady has been saying so. She now signs and says "cookie" and "more" (though 'cookie' usually means just that she's hungry). She also says many other words (mama, dada, kitty, meow, Finn (the dogs name), Mae Mae (the cats name), beep beep, night night, all done, bear, there, ball, book, baby, duck, outside, she just learned "NO" which is a fun one, she's said grandma and grandpa a few times, she's signed and said "milk" a few times but still learning that one. She barks for dog, etc. I know there are more but I can't think of it right now.)
Anyways I've never been worried about her speech because I know all kids go at their own pace, and with myself and my husband having been slower with speech at her age as well, it didn't phase me at all. I've talked to several other mothers who have children her age or older who are the same, and even my electrophysiologist said his 3 year old son mostly just babbles still too.
My problem is the nurse practitioner who has been seeing her. (She saw one pediatrician, who went on maternity leave, went to the one who covered her, then when they left we went back to the original who was back from maternity leave, then she quit so they switched us to the NP instead of a pediatrician.) The NP has seen her a total of maybe 4 times. (Health check ups/shots/etc) And she goes based just on the evaluations we have to fill out. She's all paranoid because my daughter's still scoring low with her speech. (Like she's magically going to be 100% caught up?) and on the paper she also scored low on "problem solving" because OVER HALF of the questions were speech related! So now she's saying she's too far behind in that too even though I pointed out the questions were all speech related. It's hard to score high in those when she's behind on speech...
Anyways she wants us to go see a speech therapist every week on top of the appointments every other week that we have been doing. (They were once a month or every 3 weeks when school was out since it's through the ISD) and made a big deal about the fact that she's still behind. (Said nothing positive about her making so much progress.)
I talked to the early childhood care provider who has been working with my daughter's speech the past year since, in my opinion, she knows way more of my daughter's speech after coming over at least 2 times a month vs the NP who has seen her maybe 4 times total...) and she said that she isn't too worried and that my daughter's speech is improving. But she said she'd bring their own speech therapist at one of my next appointments.
Before they were able to set that up, I was getting phone calls from the other speech therapist that the NP was pushing. As soon as I answered (I waited to talk to the one girl before I was going to set anything up) they gave me some sarcasm. Then when I told them that she is seeing someone for her speech already and that she was going to bring her speech therapist out. They seemed upset by that, and asked me for the lady's full name. I gave it to them. Then they hung up and about 10 minutes later called back complaining that "she's not a speech therapist". I told them no, she's not, but she's been working with her speech for months now, and that she is GOING to bring her speech therapist out next time. They then told me "once a month isn't good enough" so I told them that it's every other week, not once a month. It was only a little less when school was out of session. Their response was just "well every other week might not be enough." I was getting irritated that they were trying to push me too much, so I told them what I told the lady she's been seeing. I don't mind them coming out more often if they think its needed or want to, but since I've been working with them with her for about a year, I'm sticking with them.
So that was last week. This week I get a call from the NP office... saying they got the evaluations from the lady that I've been working with and need to set up an appointment with her to go over them. I am going over the evaluations with the lady who does them and she has amazing communication. So I'm getting kind of irritated at how the NP is treating us.
I have her and one other person getting mad at me for being upset about it and not wanting to stress it out MORE. And then I have a majority of familly (my mother and MIL both said we were both like this at her age, or even more behind..) as well as other professionals, nurses, and DOCTORS telling me she's absolutely fine and not to worry about it because all kids develop at their own pace.
I was wondering other people's thoughts on this and tips on how to handle the NP. I'm 90% sure we will be switching to a different office or at very least the new doctor they just hired in, an actual pediatrician instead of a NP. (Not dissing NP, they work hard but they dont specialize in kids like a pediatrician does.)