The Long Referral, Part 2 :: Searching for a Speech Therapist

The Long Referral, Part 2 :: Searching for a Speech Therapist

By the time my son was around eighteen months old, the concerns I had been carrying for over a year were becoming harder to ignore.

When Words Don’t Come the Way You Expect

He had words. He had always had words. But he was not gaining them the way I expected. Sometimes it seemed as though he was working harder than he should have to communicate. He understood far more than he could express, and I found myself paying attention to every new word, every attempt at a sentence, every moment of frustration when he could not quite get his message across.

There was no single moment that convinced me something was wrong. It was the accumulation of small observations over time. The same instinct that had kept me asking questions about his tongue tie and lip tie was telling me to keep paying attention now.

When I brought those concerns to his pediatrician, we agreed that a speech therapy referral was the next step.

I remember feeling relieved.

We finally had a direction.

What I did not realize then was that a referral to a speech therapist is not the same as access to one. It is the beginning of a wait.

A Referral Is Not Access

The first referral seemed promising. A local provider contacted us, but there was a waitlist. I understood that waitlists happen, especially for services that are in high demand, but it was still difficult to hear when I felt like every month mattered.

When I let his pediatrician know about the delay, she provided another referral. I hoped having a second option would move things along. Instead, it introduced a new set of concerns. The intake process felt disorganized, communication was inconsistent, and my interactions with the office staff left me questioning whether this was the right fit for our family. As much as I wanted answers, I also wanted to feel confident in the people who would be working with my child.

I continued searching. One provider offered consultations that lasted only about fifteen minutes. That may work for some children, but it did not feel like enough time for someone to understand my son, his strengths, or the concerns that had brought us there in the first place. I was not looking for the fastest answer. I was looking for the right speech therapist for my son.

Discovering Louisiana’s EarlySteps Program

Around that time, I began looking into Louisiana’s EarlySteps program. EarlySteps provides early intervention services for infants and toddlers up to age three, including speech therapy, occupational therapy, and developmental support. It sounded like exactly the kind of support we needed. But like everything else, it came with its own intake process, paperwork, and timeline.

Before long, I found myself managing multiple paths at once: private providers, waitlists, referrals, and EarlySteps. Each required follow-up and patience.

What We Did While We Waited

What I want other parents to understand is that waiting for services is not the same as doing nothing.

While we were waiting, I was constantly evaluating options. Was this provider a good fit? Was that evaluation thorough enough? Was I being overly concerned, or was I seeing something that needed attention? Every decision seemed to come with another question attached to it.

I spent a lot of time reading about language development and speech milestones. I compared what I was seeing at home with what I was reading online and hearing from professionals. Some days I felt reassured. Other days I found myself right back where I started, wondering whether I should be pushing harder.

The waiting did not happen in the background of our lives. It became part of our daily routine. Every attempt at communication felt significant because I trying to determine whether we were making progress or needed more support.

During that gap, my family and I started doing what we could at home after researching ways we could support him. We paid closer attention to how we communicated with him. We slowed down and narrated more of what we were doing throughout the day.

Looking back, those moments mattered more than I realized at the time.

Making the EarlySteps Referral Myself

One of the things that immediately stood out to me about EarlySteps was that parents can make referrals themselves. I did not have to wait for another provider to initiate the process. I called the number for our region and started the referral on my own.

What I did not realize was how much happened between making the referral and actually receiving services.

The process began with intake paperwork and an initial meeting to discuss my concerns. Later, an evaluator came to our home to learn more about my son and his development. We shared medical records documenting his tongue tie and other relevant information so that the evaluation could take his history into account.

After that came another meeting to discuss eligibility, goals, and services. We met with a family service coordinator, reviewed recommendations, and talked about what support might look like moving forward. Once my son was determined eligible, I selected a speech therapist from a list of available providers, and we waited to be matched and scheduled.

Each step made sense on its own. Together, they took time. By the time everything was finalized, nearly a month and a half had passed from the day I made the referral.

Two Paths Forward: Choosing the Right Speech Therapist

Interestingly, around the same time EarlySteps was finalizing services, the first provider we were referred to contacted us about an opening. After spending months searching, waiting, and following up, I suddenly had two paths forward.

We decided to move ahead with both and see which services were the best fit for his needs. What I learned quickly is that receiving services is only part of the journey. Finding the right speech therapist is another.

The EarlySteps therapist felt like a strong fit for my son at that stage of his development. She had experience working with children who had tongue and lip ties, and it showed in the way she approached him. She incorporated sign language, modeled communication strategies, and used techniques I had not seen before. She seemed comfortable working with a high-energy toddler and knew how to redirect that energy toward interaction and communication.

What stood out most was not any one strategy. It was the way she engaged with him. Even before he could fully express himself verbally, she treated him as someone worth communicating with. That approach helped me better understand what effective early intervention could look like.

For the first time, I felt like we were moving forward.

As services began, it became clear that one approach was a better fit for our son’s needs at that stage. We gradually shifted our focus toward the in-home services provided through EarlySteps and increased the frequency of those sessions.

The decision was not about one program being good and another being bad. It was about finding the support that worked best for our child at that particular moment in his development. That experience taught me another lesson: access is important, but fit matters, too.

What Made the Difference

Once we settled into services, I began noticing changes.

Some of the progress seemed connected to the exercises and communication strategies the therapist introduced. We worked on activities designed to encourage tongue movement, communication, and engagement. Over time, I began seeing more attempts to communicate and greater confidence in expressing wants and needs.

But I think another piece of the progress came from something much simpler.

For the first time, my son was regularly interacting with someone who was not a parent, grandparent, or caregiver. The therapist did not automatically know what he wanted. She could not anticipate every need the way we often could. Communication became necessary in a different way.

As a parent, it made me realize how often we fill in the gaps for our children without even thinking about it. We learn their routines, gestures, and preferences so well that we sometimes understand them before they have to find the words themselves.

Speech therapy created opportunities for my son to practice communicating with someone who needed him to meet her halfway. In many ways, that was just as valuable as the therapy activities themselves.

What I Want Other Parents to Know

Looking back, the hardest part was not recognizing that my son needed support. The hardest part was learning how much existed between identifying a concern and receiving services.

When we first received the referral, I thought we had reached the solution. What I eventually learned is that a referral is not access. It is the beginning of a process that often requires patience, persistence, and more follow-up than many families expect.

Along the way, I learned that finding services and finding the right fit are not always the same thing. Every provider, speech therapist, and program brings something different to the table, and sometimes the best support comes from finding the approach that matches your child’s needs at a particular stage of development.

If you are in that season right now, waiting for a call back, filling out paperwork, sitting on a waitlist, or wondering whether you are doing enough, I want you to know that the work you are doing matters. The questions you are asking matter. The time you spend observing, advocating, researching, and showing up for your child matters.

The system moves at its own pace.

You move at your child’s.

And sometimes, that makes all the difference.

Missed Part 1? Read [The Long Referral, Part 1: Advocating for My Tongue-Tie Baby] to see how this journey began.