How long will my child need speech therapy for?
We get asked this question often, and we understand! We, too, wish we could know how long progress will take to achieve. Before we dive in to the research, let’s review some questions and details that impact how long it may take to make progress in goals and what may be the “ideal” frequency and duration of treatment sessions.
What are the individual’s goals? Or what are the family’s goals for their child?
These seems too obvious to mention, but it’s true! For example, for a teenager who stutters - is their goal to speak fluently close to 100% of the time in almost all situations? Or is their goal to gain knowledge of stuttering and have access to techniques that will allow them to stutter with less tension? These are two very different goals and the intervention frequency and duration will reflect that!
How responsive is the individual to treatment? For example, are they “stimulable” for the sound they are working on? This means they are able to produce it already, but need support and/or prompting.
Is home practice being completed? How often?
What does the family’s home schedule look like? How frequently can they realistically come in?
What does the research say about this type of goal and ideal frequency/duration?
Some terms to cover before we dive in:
frequency: how often an client has a treatment session (e.g., 1/week, 2/week, 1/month, etc.)
duration: the length of the session time (e.g., 30 mins, 1 hour, etc.)
treatment block: a period of time where a client is receiving treatment regularly (e.g., 2/week for 6 weeks)
consolidation/off block: a “break” period of time; where no sessions are scheduled but continued practice is expected
OK, let’s dive in!
The answers to these questions will vary greatly depending on the area of speech and language therapy being targetting. We will give some examples of the research for the following areas:
Speech sound disorders
Language delays and disorders
Stuttering
