All About Delayed Speech

[EASON MAGPIES]

Just read an article by in the Sunday Times by a columnist Gerard Wong about his daughter who had mild ASD. She cannot speak even at 18 months and then was diagnose with ASD at age 2. My DD is now 20 months and also still cannot utter a single word. Now I am getting a bit worried.


Will probably bring her to the polyclinic very soon.

Can we diagnose this by going to KK ?

I heard Speech Therapist are every expensive and doing it 3 times a week will probably be hard on finances!

[justcoping]

Hi Eason,

I’ve sent u a pm

[EASON MAGPIES]

justcoping:

Hi Eason,

I've sent u a pm

Thanks for your reply

[Audvis]

Dear Eason

You can do an initial self check whether yr child has ASD by going thru the checklist I gave earlier. As for speech therapy, it costs 135 and up, depending on the seniority and experience of the speech therapist. As for frequency, it really depends on how severe the Child’s issue is, how fast parents want to see results and of course parents’ budget. In general, more severe case eg with drooling and refusal to eat solid food will need more frequent therapy. Indeed, speech therapy is very draining on the family’s finances and can cause a lot of conflict betw the parents, esp if they disagree on the frequency of therapy. But bear in mind that the earlier u provide intervention to the child, the easier it is for the child to overcome his or her difficulties. All the best!

[phtthp]

my heart cries out to those poor families who earn only around $2k, with kids suffering like this … got to feed family, etc. where got $ to send child for expensive speech therapy treatment costing > $100 per hour ? not forgetting that this is for life.

[laughingcat]

EASON MAGPIES:

Just read an article by in the Sunday Times by a columnist Gerard Wong about his daughter who had mild ASD. She cannot speak even at 18 months and then was diagnose with ASD at age 2. My DD is now 20 months and also still cannot utter a single word. Now I am getting a bit worried.


Will probably bring her to the polyclinic very soon.

Can we diagnose this by going to KK ?

I heard Speech Therapist are every expensive and doing it 3 times a week will probably be hard on finances!

Hi eason magpies,

To reduce your anxiety, just bring your child to see the speech therapist asap. If at the end of the day it is a false alarm, then be it. At least an early intervention on your part not only ease any doubts or if you really needs such help. To reduce the cost, just go to polyclinic to get a referer letter to KK. But do take note that the slot to speech therapist is very long. It was mentioned that SGP is lacking speech therapist for the masses. So don't wait anymore, just go with your guts feeling. To me no point waiting for baseline of 3yrs or whatever especially the queue is so long.

I have a cousin that used to complain to me that she needed to wait at least 6 mths for the appointment.....that was last year. After many sleepless nights and crying silently, in the end she went to the private clinic which is even more expensive.

Take it easy and just work fast. :snuggles:

[Audvis]

I agree that poor families' kids are at significant disadvantage compared to rich kids. Poor families have to rely on subsidized intervention provided by KKH. But this intervention sucks, because there is LONG waiting time. At best they give u package of 6 lessons, after that u hv to go back to polyclinic get another referral and wait again for a few months for your slot to start.

[phtthp]

fyi - sharing …


actually, my friend’s friend had 2 kids.

elder boy #1 is autistic. At the age of 4 - once diagnosed autistic, she quickly gave birth to 2nd one, so that next time the younger boy can take care of the older brother, if she or her husband die one day. It was very traumatic news accepting the fact that the elder was born autistic. She cried buckets of tears over the acceptance of the fate of the poor kid.

luckily 2nd boy was born normal, just a little slow. But Thank God 2nd son was still ok.

in the end - to help the elder boy at home, she paid $150 for a professional to train her speech therapy at home. This way, she learnt and acquired the therapy skill, so that in turn she becomes a trained speech therapist at home and train her son daily in therapy treatment , bypassing all the horrible long, long waiting queue at KK hospital, bypassing all the expensive charges rates at private hospital for speech therapy.

it’s the same concept like going for Montessori lessons. Nowadays many parents go for Montessori lessons, so that they in turn can teach their own kids Montessori curriculum at home. Don’t forget - when Dr. Maria Montessori design the Montessori curriculum, it was for the sake of these kids facing learning difficulty. She was a great noble woman.

likewise, there is also such thing as go for training in speech therapy … so that can help poor child at home. Singapore is definitely in lack of speech therapy at subsidized rates. > $100 is so expensive… i mean 1 hour passes so quickly.

[Audvis]

Agree tt it is impt for parents to be involved in the therapy lesson. Afterall parents or caregivers are the ones who will spend the most time with the child, not the therapist. It is really not very practical to take the kid to therapy more than once or twice a week, due to time and budget constraint. Substantial portion of our pay went to these therapy lessons when my girl was attending therapy. Money disputes were frequent. It was a stressful period indeed. You can imagine my relief when the therapist said my girl can be discharged.

[laughingcat]

Of course when a parent send the child to speech therapist, one should not rely everything on the speech therapist himself/herself. It wouldn’t be fair to say that the improvement process is slow if everything rely on therapy alone. In all intervention, parents must also do their part wholeheartedly and daily. Not to forget that the child spend more time with the parents as compared to hourly per week therapy session. It is the same concept with tuition as well. JMHO