Delaying Services Through Lack of Referral - By Mackenzie McWade

Our greatest challenge in receiving services was getting the initial referral for testing. I brought up my concern for my daughter being hard to understand at multiple wellness visits, only to be reassured that she would start speaking more clearly once she started preschool and was around children her age. This didn’t make sense to me since she has two older brothers close in age who spoke just fine. It wasn’t until right before starting preschool that I brought her to get an evaluation where we discovered she did need speech services.  
 
The doctor’s dismissal of any issue was enough to make me feel like I was being paranoid, whereas if I would’ve gotten a referral for an evaluation the first time I mentioned it, she would have received services a year earlier.  

Speech services through the preschool program and speech services continuing when the school goes on summer break are what my family needs most.