Having a third child with a speech delay was what I expected. What I didn’t expect was to see my daughter develops speech as fast as she did in less than a year with Kidworks. 2020 had brought so many challenges with therapy from being in person to tele-therapy. My daughters progress wouldn’t be where it is without Mrs. Susie. Her hard work and dedication during the pandemic and learning how to effectively use tele-therapy to ensure progress was made means so much to me as parent. I’m so amazed at where my daughter is in her speech from hardly making meaningful sounds to emerging in 3/4 word sentences. This would not of been possible without Kidworks and Mrs. Susie. Thank you so much, we are very blessed and pleased with our experience.

I could not be happier with my family’s teletherapy experiences at Kidworks!  I have a 10 year old autistic son and a 4 year old son with speech delay.  I’ll admit I was skeptical about teletherapy speech sessions, but I have been very pleasantly surprised!  Both of their therapists have really stepped up and  figured out creative ways to engage with my boys.  The boys actually enjoy it and are thriving! Also, there is something to be said for being able to have sessions in the comfort of our own home!-

When the pandemic first started I was very leery about virtual speech therapy, thinking that it was not going to work with my then 3.5 year old. Boy, was I wrong! Not only does he look forward to speech, I learn a lot watching Ann teach too! I am beyond grateful Kidworks provides this service amid the pandemic so my child did not fall behind

Kidworks has been a gift to our family from day one. I was a scared and near-tears mom who’s little boy just aged-out of Indiana’s First Steps and was given a list of places to call to get him more help. As I went through the list, the star aligned. I was surprised when the owner picked up the phone that day- a mom who was inspired by her own children and struggles to find help and who was determined enough to open her own clinic to help others. It was amazing how she could read my fear and know that I needed someone to really walk me through not only the process of “what do I do next,” but also support me with being a mom of a child with special needs for the first time. At the end of that conversation, I felt like someone finally knew how I was feeling and I felt confident getting my son an evaluation for services. 

One day in my son’s occupational therapy session, we had a giant “light-bulb moment.” Our son was in the corner, staring at the hinges in the door. It was as though he was stuck there and had no interest in any other activity. I remember feeling really embarrassed by it. Then, after a while, Molly, our OT, crawled over to the door and started staring at the hinges with him. I asked her, “What are you doing?” She said, “I’m staring at the hinges. You have to enter his world.” What she was really teaching me was that if I wanted to connect with my son, in a way he could understand, I was going to have to start seeing the world through his eyes. Meet him where he is at. And, from that day forward, nothing was the same. The growth my son had was incredible. She changed MY thinking, so that I could help my son when my therapist was not there. And now, 10 years later, we still refer to this moment and remind ourselves to get into his world. Just the other day, my husband said, “You need to go look at the hinges.” 

We had many services over the years at Kidworks, including Speech Therapy, Music Group, Occupational Therapy, and various social clubs. I owe so many profound experiences in my life to the therapists at Kidworks. My son struggled to talk and spent a lot of time screaming for his needs early on. Then, when he learned to talk, he only spoke back the things he heard. He could say, line for line, every commercial, cartoon, or movie line he ever watched and would say it in a sort of robotic way. He would use these “scripts” to try to communicate with us. For many years, he had never spoken a word that came from his own mind. Then, one day, he said, “I love you” to me and it was different. I wasn’t scripted and it wasn’t spoken in that way where you knew it was from something he watched on TV. I was lucky enough to be the first one to hear him say words from his mind and his heart and I owe that to Ann, his Speech Therapist. Ann was incredibly supportive and went above and beyond the role of SLP over the years. She watched my son and my family grow not only in size, but in knowledge and confidence. She helped us, help ourselves until the day he “graduated” speech therapy, a truly bittersweet moment for our family.  Many times, when I hear my son chatter on and on today, I think back to those days early on with Ann and think how lucky we were to have her.

I cannot express my gratitude enough to all the therapists that helped my son and my family over the years at Kidworks. Our town is so lucky to have a clinic like this- one that leads with their hearts.