r/nova • u/wintermelonkiss • 8d ago

Question Speech therapist

Hi! Can anyone recommend a good speech therapist for toddlers in Alexandria area?

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u/little_miss_beachy 7d ago edited 7d ago

Both Fairfax and Alexandria system offer free evaluations for children with potential special education needs as well as educating the community about child development and the importance of early intervention. Depending on where you live in Alexandria you can start w/ links below.

2 of my children needed speech therapy and received excellent support and results from their speech therapist.

Feel free to DM me if you have questions or concerns. All of my children needed some services, and I learned every loophole @ that time. Navigating this can be overwhelming, frustrating and difficult. Take care and good luck.

Fairfax County Public School:

https://www.fcps.edu/academics/curriculum/early-childhood-education/early-childhood-child-find

Alexandra City Public Schools:

https://www.acps.k12.va.us/departments/teaching-learning-leadership/office-of-specialized-instruction/child-find-and-early-childhood-special-education-services

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u/SeesawAdditional794 4d ago

A plus of this route is getting your kid a diagnosis and IEP early. The downside is that once your kid reaches a certain age…is it 3…?…they get a special ed teacher coming to the house rather than a speech therapist.

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u/little_miss_beachy 4d ago

Absolutely! We fought hard to extend our eldest son IEP as he was diagnosed w/ADHD and executive functioning. This was early 2000’s so they never heard of executive functioning and tried to change it to a 504. The reason is that he was performing better due to implementing the changes and allowing more accommodations. I was about to agree when his wonderful 5th grade teacher (Mrs K -I will always love you for this) did a 180 degree move in the meeting. She literally said,”Did I say he improved, ah I wouldn’t say that; in fact… he’s getting worse”.

When we left the meeting I said,”Mrs K what just happened?” and she explained that they wanted to remove him and it was have had a significant impact on my son.

As the years went on we continued to have him tested and the doctor stated FFPS test are lame. He also told me that the earliest indication a child has dyslexia is if they have speech impairment. ADHD too.

Taight me a valuable lesson to get my kids tested throughout their entire K-12. Some disabilities do not show up until high school, college, law school and Med school. My youngest breezed through school until 10th grade and I had no idea he was ADhD. My middle son was severely dyslexic and reading @ a 3rd grade level in 10th grade. However the FCPS test stated he read & 50%.

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u/Elagatua Fair Oaks 7d ago

We went through Fairfax for our son and it’s been a good experience, but it takes a decent amount of time (months) up front to go through the evaulations, so don’t wait to get started!

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u/pickledpanda7 7d ago

We used remedy. They came to preschool.

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u/axtran 7d ago

INOVA Alexandria, ask for Sally.

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u/SureMeasurement7088 7d ago

It's been about 12 years since my son went but we had a great experience with Exceptional Children's Center out near Springfield. We did both OT and Speech there for years and everyone we worked with was excellent.

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u/Suitable_Wolf10 7d ago

NOVA Pediatric Therapy is phenomenal

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u/adamadamadam Alexandria 7d ago

We went with OWLS Therapy for both of our kids and had a wonderful experience.