Has anyone paid for private speech therapy?

My poor Adam drops a lot of sounds when he talks and he is frequently very difficult to understand. He was in speech therapy with the school system (once per week) from December through June and he showed a very modest improvement. He's been off for the summer and there has been some definite backsliding in the little progress that he had made. I guess the school will continue the speech therapy again when he starts Kindergarten because he does have an IEP for speech.

There is an SLP in my area who is offering group speech therapy on Saturday mornings and she seemed very competent when I talked to her on the phone. It sounds promising and I actually think Adam might do well in a group setting. There will be three kids aged 4-5 in the group. Anyway, she wants to charge $50 for each 45 minute session. To be honest, that's probably about twice what I was expecting and it seems like a lot given that it's a group lesson. I'll probably give it a try for a few months anyway because I really think he needs more than what's offered by the school but it does put a crimp in our budget when we finally thought we were getting a break from having two kids in preschool. Has anyone else paid for private therapy? Does the price seem fair to you?

 

My son just recently graduated from the First Words program (Preschool, government funded program). When he was off block we would put him in private 1-1 therapy. It costs $135CDN per hour.

He has been recommended to the school age program, but will not get evaluated until after Christmas due to the waiting lists, so we will continue to have him in private therapy for the next 4 or 5 months (probably twice a month due to costs and already using up insurance)

He has similiar issues to your son, and we found that when he was in semi private, he did not progress as well as when he was put in the private lessons.

The price is probably not out of line for a group lesson. It will depend on if the kids have similiar sound issues or not. You would want all the kids to have similiar issues.

We have been in therapt for 3 years, and this summer his granparents commented that they could understand him 80 or 90% of the time, which was great, and showed us it is worth the time and money that we spend on this. He is 5 years 5 months currently.

T

 

We actually decided to pay for 1-1 speech therapy sessions because Jamie was identified as needing speech therapy through the school in kindergarten but was placed on a waiting list because there was nobody was available through the school to take her on. My reasoning was "the sooner the better". The price per 45 minute session was $60 which I thought was very reasonable and it turned out that both my husband and I had coverage through work once we looked into it so we were reimbursed for the expense. She made very good progress in just her weekly sessions so we didn't supplement beyond that but I know what you mean about the "backsliding". I am now thinking that I should have continued therapy through the summer because even though I understand almost everything she says, I know others do not and her level of frustration with this really causes her distress. I know she will resume in September, but Grade 1 is so much more challenging and she is also in French Immersion so supplementing may be necessary. It is unfortunate that you can't get assistance with the cost. It is clearly having a positive impact on Adam. In answer to your question, for a group of 4-5 children based on the costs here in Ontario, that DOES seem high.

 

We pay $75 for a 50-minute session weekly, but that's one-on-one. And, that's very, very cheap for our area -- the going rate for most therapies is $140 per hour here in Atlanta. Our therapist is a friend of a friend, which is the only reason she's giving us this rate.

To compare, we pay $120 for one hour of physical therapy weekly, and that's discounted because we pay for 12 sessions in advance. And, we pay $70 for 30 minutes of oral motor therapy weekly.

I'm not familiar with group rates, sorry. But, I wouldn't hesitate to put your kiddo in a group setting if you think he'd benefit!

 

Thanks for the quick replies! It looks like $50 is a reasonable rate. The individual rate probably would have made me fall over but I guess that masters degree that they have is worth a lot. I'm definitely going to give it a try and see if the school therapy plus the group therapy gives some results.

 

we were paying $60 for a 45 minute session so i think the price you quoted sounds great. we switched health insurance companies and it is now covered by our insurance. we pay $20 out of pocket per session and owen is seen 2x per week so we pay $160 a month. check with your insurance and your son's might be covered, too! i can say that owen really needed it and it has made a world of difference and because the therapist comes to school and does his therapy during school he doesn't feel like he "misses out" on things by having to go to therapy after school while his brothers are playing.

eta: he is in one-on-one therapy. we did group therapy one time and it didn't work well for him so we went back to private therapy. the group session was $45 for 30 minutes so there really wasn't much savings by doing the group session.