Young Children Can Get Free Speech Therapy : Language: Public schools offer special programs to help 2- to 5-year-olds tackle speech problems before they reach the classroom.

Christina David was only 3 1/2 when her parents realized that only her family could understand her speech.

The pediatrician told her parents that Christina’s frequent ear infections--which limited her ability to hear--may have contributed to her language problem, and recommended speech therapy.

Her parents, Dotty and Pablo David, spent about $3,500 for a year and a half of private speech therapy, yet still felt Christina was difficult to understand.

Then the Davids found out that the Los Angeles Unified School District offers speech and language assessment and therapy, and they tried it. Within a few months, Christina had made great progress, and by the time she entered kindergarten, she had no speech problems. Now their son Mickey, 4, is getting speech therapy at Morningside School in San Fernando for a similar problem.

Many parents are not aware that the best time to catch speech and language difficulties is early--at age 2 to 3--which is several years before children start school. Some may not realize that help is available through the public schools for children that young.

But the Los Angeles Unified School District offers a range of programs designed to meet the needs of preschool and kindergarten students. The programs are available free to all children in the community, even if they are headed for or enrolled in private or parochial schools.

The programs are mandated by federal and state laws that specifically require that services be available to children ages 3 to 5 as well as to those who are in school.

The programs range from five-day-a-week classes for children with severe speech problems to once-a-week programs for children with minor speech lags. The programs include classroom enrichment designed to stimulate the language development of children in socio-economically disadvantaged areas to more traditional speech therapy with licensed, credentialed speech and language specialists. There are 78 speech and language therapists in the San Fernando Valley, serving 181 elementary, secondary and special education schools.

According to Barbara Staley, a speech and language specialist at Montague Avenue School in Pacoima and at Morningside School, the first step for parents who think their children may have a problem is to call the Valley’s Special Education Services office (818-997-2466) to request a screening. A speech and language specialist, a psychologist and a motor development specialist will assess the child’s socialization, speech, language and motor skills and make a formal recommendation.

Children who show a mild delay in speech and language development may be referred to the Early Education Program, a 90-minute, once-a-week class that gives children special attention designed to build language skills and provide parents with language-related information and a parent support group. Children age 3 and older with more severe speech problems may be offered one of 55 Special Day Class programs, which give special attention to six to eight children in a classroom five days a week.

When Christopher Stone, 7, started the five-day-a-week special day class at Dearborne School in Northridge three years ago, he had a learning and speech delay problem that made even saying simple words difficult, said his father, Alan Stone, a Van Nuys graphic artist.

Now Christopher is starting first grade--and doing well--with the added special reading and motor skill support from the school’s resource teacher. “The language programs are one thing the school district does really well,” Stone said. “And it’s free. Chris’ teacher treated him like he was her own child, and gave personalized attention to all six or eight kids in the class.”

Stone said he found that the private schools he checked into didn’t have the facilities to work with children with special needs.

Stone said he feels Christopher was lucky that his problems were identified early. Many of the children in Chris’ kindergarten class, he said, clearly would have benefited from additional speech and language training but their parents were either unaware of the children’s special needs or they assumed their speech development would eventually catch up.

Many parents don’t realize that language problems do not necessarily go away as a child matures, Staley said. What is considered cute baby talk for a toddler may not work when children are put in social situations with other children. The child whose speech sounds different from the others can be singled out and teased, or may become self-conscious, frustrated or reserved, she said.

In addition, failing to get speech help early can lead to failure in school. “Reading and writing are just another dimension of oral language, and if children can’t hear and say the words correctly, they will have trouble learning to read and write,” Staley said.

Just as some parents don’t move aggressively to have their children’s speech assessed when potential problems present themselves, Staley said others seem overly concerned and tense about their preschooler’s failure to enunciate perfectly.

“Many parents want to fix things right away, they want the language problems to be solved immediately,” she said. “But parents, while they need to have problems looked at, also need to relax. You can’t go to the bathroom for your child, you can’t eat for your child and you can’t make them talk. You have to build their self-esteem and have faith that things will start to happen.”

To help speed the children’s development of language skills in socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, the school district has targeted 18 kindergarten classrooms for the Oral Language Development Program. The program is designed to build the communication skills of kindergartners who may not have had the benefit of such language stimulation in a preschool environment, said Esther Meyers, a speech and language specialist and a program coordinator in the Valley. Speech and language specialists work with kindergarten teachers to build skills that the teachers can use immediately and with future classes, and they work directly with the children to help them learn to talk in the more formal environment of the classroom.

Staley, who works with 90 children in the program at Montague, said: “Many children are coming from a home environment where their family always knows what they’re talking about, and when they’re in the classroom they may not realize that the teacher and other students don’t necessarily understand what they are talking about.”

Staley said the program teaches children to talk in front of the class and to speak in complete sentences, and it enriches the children’s vocabulary through play activities and songs.

Once their child has been identified as having a speech or language problem, some parents wonder whether they should use the school district services or give their children private speech therapy.

Bernice Sedlik, a private speech and language specialist in Canoga Park, said she always advises parents to seek services through the public schools. “Parents usually do contact the public schools,” she said, but added that there are situations in which the structure or the design of the services may not meet the parents’ or the children’s needs.

“A school schedule may not be compatible with a parent’s schedule, or parents may have a negative view of the services they will receive in the schools,” she said. Sometimes, parents have expressed concern that the people testing the children do not seem comfortable working with preschoolers, or the services seem inconsistent due to holiday school closures or staff meetings that interrupt the regularly scheduled speech therapy sessions or classes.

The benefit of private speech therapy is that the child gets more personal attention, since private sessions usually involve only one child while the public school speech therapy sessions often include two or three children. But she said that if a child qualifies for the early education program, she recommends that program over private therapy.

“While parents sometimes wonder if their children can improve their speech skills in a classroom setting, by three-quarters of the way through the year, the parents realize the children have learned to speak well without one-to-one attention. You’re changing their speech environments for the rest of their lives, by modeling for the parents and teaching the parents how to facilitate speech development, too.”

How to Talk, Listen to Kids

Tips for improving your child’s speech and language skills from the Special Education Services Unit of the Los Angeles Unified School District:

* Don’t talk to your children as if they’re 30. Speak slowly, use words they can understand and check to make sure they understand what you are saying.

* Stop and listen to your children. Reinforce what they say by responding to them, letting them know you understand them.

* Don’t correct a child’s mispronunciations; try to use the word for them properly, but casually, so they can hear it said correctly.

* Try to enrich your child’s vocabulary in daily life. Build on the words they use. If a child says, for example, “Look at this pretty flower,” you can say, “Yes, I love the shape of the petals.”

* If you’re unsure about your child’s speech development, seek professional help. For free evaluation by the LAUSD, call (818) 997-2466.