08/01/2026
🌟 If you already know your child is not meeting milestones, please scroll on by- this post is not for you. Milestones aren’t a goal, they are just a helpful tool to help us identify who may need support. Once kids are identified as needing support, they should have unique goals specific to them ❤️
Childhood milestones can help adults recognize if/when a child may need additional support like speech therapy. However, a child can *meet/exceed* milestones and need therapy, and a child can miss milestones and not need therapy. Only a full evaluation with a trusted professional can let us know for sure!
So while helpful, milestones are not everything. I do recommend evaluations if anyone thinks one is needed or if a child isn’t meeting milestones - this is because evaluations can really dig deep to see a child’s true strengths and areas of needed support.
For this post- communication is waaaaay more than just number of words and pronunciation, but we use these as a “screener” because it’s fairly easy for parents and teachers to recognize.
Needing and getting therapy support for children continues to be stigmatized, and as a result, many people may become upset while reading this post. If this is you, please know that therapy is a great support for kids. It’s fun, it’s engaging, and it only benefits kids. “Wait and see” is only okay in either short bursts (3 months or less) OR when a person specialized in the specific area, ST/OT/PT, recommends it after an eval. Otherwise kids end up just struggling through when they could have had access to support earlier.
