I put off writing this review for a long time, but my experience today set off some red flags, which is unfortunate because some amazing speech pathologists work here.
My daughter started speech therapy around two and a half years old and began with Riley. Riley was an amazing speech pathologist, and my daughter made mass improvements quickly with the techniques she provided. It was very unfortunate when she left and took another job opportunity.
My daughter was then placed with Jamie Nichols, the owner. You would think you would be in good hands, but I had the opposite experience with her. The first big red flag is Halloween; my daughter was scheduled to come in. I came on time, but Jamie was nowhere to be found. Amanda took it upon herself to take my daughter in because there seemed to be no communication about who would do a session with my daughter. After finishing the session, Jamie finally showed up and asked how my daughter did; unbelievable.
The moment that made me refuse to work directly with her was this one session my daughter was frustrated. She pulls me in and says my parenting is why my daughter doesn't speak and is perfectly capable, but I give in to her crying and give her what she wants. If I continued with this type of parenting, word for word, my daughter was going to become a little monster. That is a very wild conclusion considering she only saw my daughter once a week for thirty minutes and maybe five or six sessions, and, quite frankly, it was very unprofessional. In this conversation where she wouldn't let me get a word in, she admitted that it was out of the norm for my daughter to tantrum or act very upset, and it was the first time she acted that way with her. If she had let me speak, she might have understood that my daughter was off, considering I had given birth the week before and was adjusting to having a new sibling. I feel this was very intellectually dishonest and quite lazy. Anyone who knows the basics of child development would know that expecting perfect emotional regulation from a two-year-old is very unreasonable, especially with a speech delay.
Because of this, I asked for my daughter to be removed as a client, but they assured me that they could place her with a different pathologist. She is now placed with Sarah, who I have no complaints about, and she is wonderful.
I had to change my daughter's schedule for this week because I recently started working and had training on a normal day that she goes in. The office placed her with Christina.
The first red flag is that she pulls me into the office and doesn't close the door while she speaks about my daughter's progress. I'm sure that is a HIPPA concern, if not just a flat violation. She asks a leading question: Does my daughter ever get frustrated when making a request of her? I answer yes because, again normal developmental behavior of a two-year-old. She says there are no previous notes about my daughter's behavior, but she is concerned that she will not learn if she keeps getting frustrated. This was my daughter's first time working with her, yet she felt it was professionally appropriate to speak about my daughter's typical two-year-old behavior.
I understand that it is frustrating to teach a child that isn't compliant 100% of the time and still has issues regulating emotions, but you are not in the right profession if you do not have the patience to do so. I take my daughter's development and progress very seriously, and I'm not unteachable, but these particular speech pathologists are very unserious and need a better understanding and expectations of toddlers. read more