Over the course of the last 10 years, MSP has seen a shift in the needs of our community with more and more students requiring extra assistance in the classroom, and more and more programs tightening the reigns on the types of students being admitted. We’ve heard time and time again about students who were the “wrong fit” for a program with little explanation as to why.
While we’ve partnered with Northwest Regional ESD for many years to help get families additional supports, therapies and smoother kindergarten transitions, it was clear the need was bigger than what their agency could support. That’s when we started to brainstorm our own in house early intervention program.
Why Hire an SLP?
According to the national institute of communication, 34% of children ages 3-10 have voice, speech, or language disorders – something we were noticing a rise in with our own students, so this seemed like a good place to start.
Of those children, only 12% are likely to receive early intervention services before kindergarten, which is when the impact is the highest. Lack of accessibility to resources, with an increase in families who need them is something we’ve also seen rise since COVID so hiring a speech language pathologist (SLP) was the first step in building our program.
Currently, only children who fall in the bottom 7th percentile qualify for free speech services through the state. For those children who still struggle or need support, but are not in that group, expensive private speech is the only option. In Portland, the average price for a 30 minute speech therapy session can fall between $100 and $250. For many of our families, doing this weekly is simply out of the question.
What do we currently offer at MSP?
At Mustard Seed by having an SLP on staff, we currently offer free speech evaluations, in class social communication modeling, small group speech sessions during the school day with both students working on the same things, and typical peer buddies, private one-on-one speech support during the school day, and additional private after school speech therapy for a flat rate of $50/session. Our goal is to continue making these resources available to all families while also adding additional services providers in social emotional skills and occupational therapy in the future.
