Jul 15

Written By Laura Weinberg, CCC-SLP

About Speech Therapy.

A speech therapist practicing within their licensed is highly unlikely to harm a child.

Some children make obvious improvements. For children with a developmental disability, patience and using the methods specifically for this child are key. Quality, methods, and results vary because children, goals and situations vary.

Some parents are in a hurry. Like you, I once pushed for a “cure” now.

I tried alternative treatments on my son in his early years. His disabilities did not change at all from alternative medicine. His health got better after his food allergies resolved (just like his father’s had.) His attention improved when his bowels improved.

Some children have a medical problem that can be fixed. This “cure” will not “fix” someone else with a differently built or affected body.

No treatment, medication, or supplement helps all children with a particular speech or language disorder.

About Your Child and Interventions.

Your child is listening! What are you saying about them…

Using his non-speech AAC communication, here is what my grown-up son told me:

When he was little and we tried “cures,” he wanted “magic.”

We realized: After we tried something new, improvement was followed by a crash.

He was trying hard to “be good.” He would push himself until he was exhausted.

Then he would regress and burn out from stress.

He thought something about him was unacceptable and wrong.

It hurts me to think what I was doing to his sense of self worth.

“Cures” can be dangerous.

Parents have put children sealed in hyperbaric oxygen tanks,

and a child with a developmental disability is known to have died in one.