We've Had 15 Speech Therapists. Here's What I've Learned.

My son has had fifteen speech therapists.

Fifteen. In four years.

I want to be careful how I say this — because speech pathology as a profession matters enormously and there are genuinely brilliant speech therapists out there. We've had two or three who were exceptional. But fifteen is a number that tells its own story about how hard it is to find the right one and how much the wrong ones can cost a family — in money, in time and in something harder to measure.

Here's what I wish someone had told me before we started.

You Have No Gauge In The Beginning

When your child is non-verbal you have almost nothing to measure progress by in the early days. Is the therapy working? You genuinely don't know. Your son went to a session. He played. He came home. Did something happen in there that matters? You have no idea.

That invisibility makes parents vulnerable. You keep going back because you don't know enough to stop. You trust the process because what else do you do?

Our first sessions were when my son was around three and a half — before we were even approved for the NDIS. We were paying $200 out of our own pocket every week. Two hundred dollars for a session and we had almost no way to know if it was helping.

That's where most families start. Blind, scared and paying.

The Business Behind The Therapy

The third speech therapist we saw was fine. She was okay. But the practice she worked for was a different story.

Bills arrived for reports we never asked for. Sessions were cut to 45 minutes — not because 45 minutes was the right clinical duration for our son but because the last 15 minutes were allocated to report writing. Which we were charged for.

I want to be direct about this: when you take your child to a GP or a specialist you don't pay them for the time they spend writing up their notes. That's part of the job. Some NDIS providers have learned to structure their billing in ways that extract maximum value from your plan without delivering maximum value to your child.

This isn't everyone. But it exists. And as a new NDIS parent you don't know to watch for it.

What to ask before you start:

• What does a standard session include?
• Are reports billed separately and if so what triggers a report?
• What is the session length and how is that time used?

The Experience Problem

Here's an uncomfortable truth from four years of searching.

A lot of speech therapists are young. Some are fresh out of university. Some are experienced but came to the profession later and are still building their clinical depth. And some — experienced or not — only have one way of working.

This last group is the most frustrating.

Some speech therapists find an approach that works for a certain type of child and they stick to it regardless of whether it's working for yours. They're not bad people. They're not even bad therapists necessarily. But if your child doesn't respond to their method they will keep applying that method and wait.

Non-verbal autistic children are not a single category. The differences between one non-verbal child and another can be enormous. A therapist who has genuine experience with non-verbal autism — not just autism, not just paediatric speech delay, but specifically non-verbal autism — will adapt. They will try different things. They will read your child and change course.

The ones who can't do that will keep sending invoices while your child sits in a session that isn't moving.

What to ask before you start:

• How many non-verbal autistic children have you worked with specifically?
• What approaches do you use and how do you decide when to change them?
• What would you do if after six sessions you weren't seeing progress?

The Conflicting Advice Problem

We've had speech therapists tell us completely contradictory things about how to support our son at home.

One said do this. The next said don't do that. One introduced an approach and her replacement dismantled it in the first session.

For a family who is trying desperately to do the right thing by their child — who goes home after every session and tries to implement what they've been told — this is exhausting and demoralising.

The best speech therapists we've had were the ones who were honest about what they didn't know. Who said "I'm not sure yet, let's try this and see." Who involved us in the thinking rather than handing down instructions.

What to ask before you start:

• How do you involve parents between sessions?
• What does home practice look like and how much time does it take?
• What's your philosophy on AAC and non-verbal communication specifically?

The Good Ones Don't Stay

This is perhaps the hardest part to write.

We've had two or three speech therapists who were genuinely exceptional. Who got our son. Who came to sessions and you could see within ten minutes that something different was happening.

None of them are still with us.

One moved practices. One moved interstate. One's waiting list became so long she couldn't take new clients and when we lost our spot we couldn't get back. The best ones are always the busiest ones. And the system — the pay, the workload, the pressure of NDIS reporting — burns people out.

I don't know how to fix that. But I know it's real and I know it's part of why finding and keeping a great speech therapist feels so impossible.

What The Right Speech Therapist Looks Like

After fifteen speech therapists here is what I can tell you.

You know within the first session. Not from their qualifications or their clinic's website. You know from watching them with your child. Are they reading him or running their program? Are they curious about him specifically or going through a process?

The right speech therapist:

• Has specific experience with non-verbal autism — not just paediatric speech, specifically non-verbal
• Adapts. If something isn't working after a few sessions they say so and try something different
• Involves you. You are not a passive observer in a waiting room. You are the most important person in your child's communication environment
• Is honest about what they don't know
• Makes your child feel safe. You can see it in the first fifteen minutes

The right speech therapist for your child is very individual. What works for one non-verbal child may not work for another. But those qualities above — adaptability, experience, honesty, genuine curiosity about your specific child — those are universal.

How To Search For One

When you search for speech therapists on FindLocalNDIS you can:

• Filter by location to find someone near you
• Read reviews from other parents — including parents of non-verbal autistic children who can tell you specifically what their experience was
• Check disability experience tags to find therapists who have explicitly listed non-verbal autism or AAC experience

A review from a parent who says "this speech therapist has genuine experience with non-verbal autism and adapted her approach when our son wasn't responding" is worth more than any credential on a website.

That's exactly why the review system exists.

Search speech therapists near you →

We're Still Looking

My son is seven. We're still looking for the right long-term speech therapist.

I wrote this because I know we're not alone. And because the fifteen families who find this post and ask better questions before their first session — that matters.

If you've found a speech therapist who genuinely gets non-verbal autism please leave them a review. Your experience could save another family months of searching.