is one 30-min session by competent SLP better than two 20-min without?

[Guest guest]

I have spent many frustrating weeks with the public school system trying to get

the right therapy for my son who will be transitioning out of EI in a few weeks.

The EI therapist he sees uses Kaufman and she is amazing! The two speech

therapists at his home school are traditionally trained and have made it very

clear that they believe they don't need any further training and that my son

will do adequately under them. The director is willing to order the Kaufman kit

and allow them to consult with an SLP in a neighboring school who uses Kaufman,

but they keep making comments about how what they do works just fine and how my

son likely doesn't even have apraxia even though an SLP and a developmental

pediatrician have said he does. I had to fight tooth and nail to get them to

agree to more than one 30 min session once a week.

Having already tried a traditionally trained SLP who claimed to have extensive

experience with apraxia and having spent 4 months with her and seeing no

progress, I put my foot down and told them that they must be willing to be

trained in Kaufman and they must use it in therapy with my son period. I asked

that I be allowed to take my son to the school in the next town that has the SLP

who uses Kaufman(he goes to private preschool just around the corner from there

anyway) but the director claims that her schedule is full and she cannot take on

any new students... especially not one from another school.

As a little bit of background, it is most likely my son doesn't have pure CAS. I

think it's a case of celiac causing symptoms that mimic apraxia. He's been GF

for a year now and the improvement in his speech has been astonishing. We also

have an SLP who uses PROMPT that we were able to get through our insurance and

she feels that his main obstacle now is intelligibility since he's putting

together whole sentences. The PROMPT SLP and the Kaufman SLP are working on

refining his remaining omissions and substitutions. He's currently getting one

30-min PROMPT session per week and two 30 min Kaufman sessions per week.

If we have our PROMPT therapist for one 30 min session per week, my question is

whether one 30 minute per week session under our Kaufman SLP would be better

than two 20 minute sessions from the SLPs who are hostile to Kaufman and don't

seem to be interested in learning about it... and also seem indifferent to

helping my son at all based on their comments. We can afford to pay our Kaufman

SLP out of pocket for 30 min/week. I'm tired of fighting the school and the

therapists there have left such a bad taste in my mouth that I don't want my son

anywhere near them.

What are your thoughts?

thanks!

-les