You did the hard part. You noticed something, you pushed past the people who told you to wait and see, and you got a referral.

Then someone told you the waiting list is fourteen months.

I know what that does to a parent. The worry does not pause while you wait. And every article you read tells you that early intervention matters, which is true, and which makes the wait feel worse.

Here is the part those articles leave out. The wait is not dead time. A lot of what a therapist would have you doing at home, you can start now. Not the assessment, not the clinical plan. But the daily practice, yes.

We waited too. This is what we did.

First, Get in Every Queue

Do this in one sitting, this week.

Ask your GP or pediatrician for referrals to more than speech therapy. A developmental assessment, occupational therapy, an early intervention programme if your country has one. Different lists move at different speeds.

We called a speech therapist first because our daughter was not talking. That logic felt obvious. It was wrong. What she needed first was someone who could look at her whole developmental picture, not just her mouth.

Ask to be put on the cancellation list. Ask what the list actually is, in weeks, and write down who told you. Call back every couple of months. Politely, but call.

If you can afford one private session, even a single assessment, it is worth more than most things you could spend that money on. It gives you a direction. If you cannot, keep reading. Everything below is free.

Learn What Comes Before Talking

This is the single most useful thing you can do while you wait, and it costs nothing.

Speech sits at the end of a sequence. Eye contact. Then shared attention, which means you and your child looking at the same thing on purpose, together. Then pointing. Then words.

Nobody told us this. I spent weeks trying to teach my daughter "yes" and "no" when she was nowhere near ready for either. She was not pointing yet.

So look at where your child actually is. If pointing is not there, pointing is your project. Not vocabulary.

A child who understands fifty words and points at what they want is in a much better place than a child who can repeat ten words but has no way to ask for anything.

Start Ten Minutes a Day

Pick a time and a spot. Ours was after breakfast at the kitchen table. Ten minutes.

Put out three picture cards. Say "Show me the cup." Guide their hand if you need to. Celebrate when they get it.

Ten minutes feels too small to matter. Do the arithmetic. Ten minutes a day is over sixty hours in a year. Your therapist, once they arrive, will give you forty-five minutes a week.

The daily habit is the thing. Build it now so that it already exists by the time therapy starts.

Talk in Two-Word Chunks

Narrate the day out loud, but keep it short.

"Shoes on. Red shoes. Go outside."

Not "Now we're going to put your shoes on so we can go to the park, would you like that?"

Long sentences are a wall of sound to a child who is still sorting out where one word ends and the next begins. Short chunks give them something they can grab.

This costs zero extra minutes. You are already doing these things. You are just saying them now.

Make Them Ask

A child who gets everything before they ask has no reason to communicate.

Offer two things instead of one. Hold them apart. "Milk or water?" Then give what they choose, immediately.

Put the bowl down without a spoon. Hand over a bubble jar with the lid screwed on. Then pause. Do not fix it right away.

That pause is where a request lives. Any sound, any gesture, any look that says "something is missing" counts. Answer it fast so they learn it worked.

Keep it light. You are creating small gaps, not frustration.

Find What Your Child Will Work For

Most advice assumes snacks. Our daughter does not eat sweets or chips and does not drink juice, so we had nothing.

Bubbles worked. That was our whole reward system for months.

Spend a week finding yours. Being spun around, a light-up toy, a particular song, a tickle. It has to be something they genuinely want. Without it, the practice stalls.

Write It All Down

Start a note on your phone today. Date it. Every new sound, new word, new gesture goes in.

Two reasons.

The first is for you. There will be weeks where it feels like nothing is happening. You will open that note and see that three months ago there were no words at all.

The second is for the appointment you are waiting for. When it finally comes, you will walk in with a record instead of a memory. Therapists can do a lot more with that.

Take a few short videos too. A minute is enough.

About Screens

You will get conflicting advice on this. Here is how we handled it.

A screen playing whatever the algorithm serves is not practice. A screen doing one structured thing, with you sitting next to your child, is different.

Our daughter learned the layout of YouTube Kids before she could speak. She could enter a video, back out, swipe to the next one. She had internalised the whole thing. So I built something that looked like what she already knew, but with our flashcard exercises inside it instead of videos. That became an app called Word Tube, and we used it for a few minutes a day alongside the table time.

The medium is not the point. What is inside it is, and whether you are sitting there with them.

What This Is Not

This is not therapy, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

You are not assessing your child. You are not building a clinical plan. You are not a substitute for a professional, and if something feels wrong, keep pushing for the appointment.

What you are doing is the daily repetition part. Which is, honestly, most of it. A therapist sees your child for under an hour a week. You have the other hundred and sixty-seven.

The wait is unfair. But you are not powerless during it.

Common Questions

How long are speech therapy waiting lists?

It varies a lot by country and region. In the UK, NHS waits of 12 to 18 months are common for non-urgent referrals. In the US it depends on insurance and whether your child qualifies for early intervention. Ask your referrer for the current figure in weeks, and get on a cancellation list.

Can I help my child talk before therapy starts?

Yes. Daily practice with pointing, shared attention, short two-word phrases and choice-making all support communication, and they are the same things a therapist will likely ask you to do at home. It does not replace an assessment, but it means you are not starting from zero.

What if we cannot afford speech therapy at all?

Look for early intervention programmes, which are free in many countries up to age three, and for university clinics, where supervised students often offer low-cost sessions. Parent-led practice at home costs nothing and is a real part of what makes therapy work.

Should I keep waiting or pay privately?

If you can manage one private assessment, it usually pays for itself by telling you where to aim. Stay on the public list either way. Many families use a single private session to get a plan, then do the daily work themselves while the public appointment comes through.

Written by Marijan, parent of a child with speech and developmental delay.