This NJ.com article by Adam Clark explores the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young children’s speech development, and the types of supports and/or barriers to care that families have and continue to face in advancing their child’s speech development.
Some families had to wait longer than usual to get started, likely due to higher demand. But there were additional challenges for families whose children do not speak English as their first language or lacked technology for tele-health. And some parents still didn’t feel comfortable inviting someone into their home to work with their unvaccinated children.
The Early Intervention program has a lending library to help families access tele-health, Kearney said. But families faced “a lot of layers of challenges and barriers,” said Lahoz Valentino, who’s embedded in the Neptune pediatrician’s office through
HealthySteps, a grant-funded program run by Hackensack Meridian Health.
Few pediatricians’ offices in New Jersey — or beyond — are equipped with a social worker. Many of the families Lahoz Valentino worked with might not have stuck it out if she weren’t involved in the process, she said. And private therapy, either in-person or virtual, simply wasn’t an option for the patients Lahoz Valentino supported. “They don’t have the resources to pay for thousands of dollars’ worth of therapy,” she said.
