Things to Know When Starting Therapy

As you and your child begin speech-language therapy at Valley Children’s, there are a handful of things to keep in mind to ensure consistent and continuous therapy to best help your child.

If appointments need to be rescheduled

Our clinicians understand that life conflicts come up. Since it’s important for children to attend therapy regularly and on time, when a conflict arises please contact us. Our team will work to reschedule any appointments or adjust future visits.

Call us at 559-353-6801 by 5 p.m. the day before the session if unable to attend.

If your child is sick

We want your child to stay home and rest if sick (fever, cough, runny nose, vomiting) and are happy to schedule a make-up visit. Unfortunately, if a session is missed without an advanced call, that visit will not be made up.

Please know: Discharge from therapy is a consideration after two missed appointments without a call, and/or if attendance to therapy is inconsistent despite calls.

Upon receiving your child’s schedule, check school schedule for events, family calendar for conflicts and review any appointments to let us know if we need to move visits.

Conflicts can happen on our end too. If this occurs, our team will make every attempt to move sessions as soon as we are alerted your child’s clinician is unavailable.

Before and the day of your appointment

Prior to the appointment, ask your child’s primary care provider to fax us records about your child’s overall health (fax to 559-353-6913). In addition, please send or bring other test results related to your child’s condition, such as:

• Hearing tests
• Medical and genetic tests related to hearing, speech and balance
• Speech-language assessments
• Educational testing and services your child and family receive (IFSP or IEP)

Please arrive 10 minutes prior to the start time of therapy for check-in and paperwork. This ensures the session will start on time and your child is able to benefit from the entire time allotment of their appointment.

In addition, please help your child to put away any toys from home prior to coming into the therapy session. We have many fun items we use for therapy and want to focus the attention on those things to support the therapy plan for the session. This includes disengaging your child from cell phones and other mobile devices.

Valley Children’s recognizes the importance of therapy consistency between sessions. This is why we work to educate parents as well to allow the skills we teach your child to be practiced at home and in the other places your child goes. In order to promote this consistency, “homework” is given at the end of each session and cell phones are requested to remain off during therapy.

What to bring

Please ensure to bring any hearing devices your child uses. In addition, if your child takes any medication, bring either the medicine or a list of them, including the name and dosage amount.

Insurance

Some insurance companies will only cover partial therapy costs. If you are unsure what your insurance company covers, we recommend contacting them prior to starting therapy.