Episode 23: Brandon and Chet: Turning Challenges into Triumphs

In this episode of 'Hear Me Out,' hosts Niki Lampi and Tamara Pogin speak with parent Brandon Benzer about his son Chet’s speech delays. Brandon describes how parent participation, themed play activities, sibling support, and field trips helped their family, and how Chet’s articulation and frustration improved over time.  He encourages parents to seek evaluations early, get on wait lists while continuing other services, and avoid comparing journeys, while the hosts note the clinic’s free services and the importance of grants and donations.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Hear Me Out, the official podcast of the Masonic Children's Clinic for Communication Disorders. This is the place where we dive into all things related to communication disorders and how we can best support the kids and families affected by them. We will be talking with speech language pathologists, clinic staff, families and donors to share stories, insights, and the impact of providing free speech, language and hearing services to children across our community. I'm Niki Lampi speech language pathologist and director of the clinic, And I'm Tamara Pogin, also a speech language pathologist with a focus on working with autistic children and their families. And we are your hosts. We're so glad you're here. today we have Brandon Benzer joining us on the podcast to talk about his family's experiences with Masonic Children's Clinic. Uh, your son Chet, graduated from the clinic in August, 2025, so you spent the last couple of years with us and we just appreciate you coming and coming on to talk about that. Yeah, I'm happy to be here and happy to, uh, share our, share our journey, through the Masonic Clinic. Thanks. Well, let's go to the very beginning. Tell us your story about how you heard about the clinic and why you wanted to, have Chet come here. Yeah, I think, uh, we noticed, we started noticing Chet was having some speech delays, I think somewhere. And that, between age one and two, at his well-child visits, it just, it was something that would come up at those visits. And, he was not quite, you know, I think maybe the milestone was 50 words or something by that point, and he was not there and not making a lot of noise. Not a lot of verbalization. So, yeah, it became clear that, uh, speech therapy was probably in our future. Now is he your first child? Is he your oldest? Uh, Chet's actually the youngest. I have two. He has an older sister. Okay. So you've seen the development and, and kind of knew what to expect Yeah. From your first child. Yep. And we try to, you know, kids develop at different rates and we try not to get too hung up on the milestones and things, but, um, I think it was pretty apparent to us at that time that. There was gonna need to be some intervention. Mm-hmm. So that was, and the what? Well, child checks kinda like the 12 month, the 15, the 18, the 24. When did you start to, Find, like, find resources, like to be like, okay, speech therapies in our future. And then who did you contact first? Yeah, so Chet started, in a clinical setting through our, through our clinic. And, for whatever reason, I don't know if Chet just wasn't quite ready for therapy or if it just wasn't quite the right fit with, with his therapist. We didn't have a lot of. Success or luck there. So then we just started seeking out other, speech opportunities. I don't think it was anybody's fault. It just wasn't the right, right. Timing or right fit. And, I, I don't remember exactly how we landed on Masonic. I wish I did. I wish I could remember, but I was just wondering if it was like from the his school or through help me grow or anything like that. Yeah. He wasn't, in school yet, so it must maybe it was a referral through our, you know, our, our family physician. Um. And then, so yeah, from there we started down the process of getting, in, into the Masonic clinic for speech. And so that process for you, can you tell us a little bit about, how long did you have to wait for the evaluation and then were you on the waiting list at all? Yeah, so we came in, um, I think Che must have been at some, some point in that two year age window year. And, uh, he did his evaluation here with Nancy. And, through that evaluation, we were assured that Chet, would be able to get services here, but we were on the wait list for about 11 months. Mm. That's a long time. But the nice thing about that was we were able to use Nancy's evaluations through Help Me Grow. And Chet had been, was, attending preschool at that time. So he was able to use the evaluation that we did here. To get, start receiving, services through the school district. That's great. Right, right. At preschool, so that's great. Yeah. So while we were on the list here for a year, we didn't have to wait that whole time to start receiving some services. Well, I'm glad you were able to find that this step helped you find other resources. Yeah. That's wonderful. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That is really important and, and that is nice how a lot of times we do work together with. Other clinic or with the school, and we wanna compliment each other because it is all about the kids and getting 'em that, that, that boost of help. Mm-hmm. But it, it is different that him going and getting me services at school. You weren't a part of that. So can you tell us a little bit about how when you did start services here with a therapist, how that felt for you? Yeah. It was. So, you know, at some point we were getting services at both at the same time. So it was always different, to be here. I was always in the room with Chet, which was, it was fun to see him, see the activities they're doing to watch him grow, and then just to be so much more aware of, the therapies that he was receiving. And it also, you know, I was able to learn a lot about speech therapy, just being in the room. So, um, it allowed us to continue some of, you know, some of those exercises at home. Yeah, in the school district, great services, but he would just be in the room, you know, and I was generally, it was like before school, so I was there, but just sitting outside of the room and then you kind of get a quick two minute recap at the end, and so Yeah. Right, right. Just a different setting. Yep. So I, yeah, but it was, yeah, it was always very interesting to be more hands-on here and in the room throughout therapy, so. And then since we don't have Chet here, do you have anything that. You recall that we're like chet's highlights of therapy, like, because a lot of times we do, um, and especially in our language and articulation therapy that we have here, we do thematic play, so we just definitely like make sure that play is a priority and things like that. Were there like some themes or some things that we did or special events that you thought his eyes just. Yeah. We always had fun, with, Serena, his therapist here at Masonic. Um, kind of trying to guess the next theme. Chad didn't seem to be so much concerned about what the actual theme was, but kind of what the activities within the theme were. Oh, sure. So he's always, he likes to do crafts and things like that, so he was always very much into the crafts, or if the theme, you know, had like the big bucket of rice or dried beans that you could dig stuff out of, he always enjoyed that. But yeah, for him it was more about the, you know, the activities more so than just the theme itself. But, and then I know he always enjoyed, like in the summertime when you know the, you do the reading, so it's in that kind of smaller group. Oh, sorry. Our story times. Yeah. Yeah. He always enjoyed being in those group settings too. So that was one thing that I got contact with Chet with, because I would have a, a therapist with a different child, but Chet would come in with Serena for the groups. Mm-hmm. And I just noticed that he really loved being a leader in those groups. Mm-hmm. Like answering the questions, making sure that every kid got a turn, especially if there was some sort of manipulative that went with the game, like with the story, like putting, Felt pieces on or mm-hmm. Or sometimes we would do other things. Like we had one where it was a construction theme, so every kid got their own like construction vehicle and they had to ask for it with like, you know, like, I want the digger, I want the whatever. Mm-hmm. And so that was really cool to see kids negotiate that like, well, I kind of want the digger. And so then they got to do that and he was really good about stuff like that. Yeah. Okay. Some of the other things that, did you guys get to participate in any of our talking about summer field trips that we went on? Like we sometimes went to the well fire station this summer. The aquarium. Um, not the aquarium, sorry, the planetarium last summer. Did you do any of those? Yeah, we did, we did all the field trips that we could that fit into our schedule and, um, so we did the Bentleyville trip both years. And it, this year we had to go to Bentleyville without all the, all the perks of the field trip and waiting in the long lines and things. So, um, yeah, definitely really fond memories of that bentleyville, field trip and getting to go inside the tree, the big tree and dance around under their. So that was how those both times we did that, that was very special. We went to the Huskies game both years. Oh, love the Huskies games. Yep. And then, this last summer, Chet had decided, he made up his mind he was gonna get a baseball at that game and he did it. He went, he did, went down the third base line and. Waited and hung out on the fence. And, finally a player from the bullpen came down and gave him, handed him a ball, so, oh, that's awesome. He still has that. And so that was, that was neat. Um, what else? The, the fire station we did this summer, that was a very cool, cool opportunity to be in there and see the trucks and the station and things. Yeah, the field trips were always fun. It was also fun. We were able to bring Chet's sister along with too. So yeah, those were good family experiences for us, for sure. Yeah. That's what's nice about the field trips is that, it can be a whole family event. Mm-hmm. And then the reason that we do them is that we want to create language rich experiences for you guys to talk about with as a family later. Mm-hmm. Or the therapist. Can we take pictures and then we can talk about it, you know, before it happens, after it happens depending on the kid's goals, so. Mm-hmm. Um. That is really cool that you were able to take advantage of that. And it is outside of like usually regular therapy times, but it's, so I'm glad that you guys could take advantage of that and that he enjoyed it. Right. And they're always so fun. And I love to hear the stories of kids that, years. Years from now, still remember those activities and events? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Like it's a special, special thing. Yeah. We have, yeah. There's def like whole family memories from those trips, like, or those field trips, at the, I'm not sure if e either of you were there at the end, but at, when we were leaving the fire station, my daughter got curious about how many pushups a firefighter could do. Yes. I wasn't done that much. And we, so she asked, and within, you know, all I look over and they're in a pushup contest with each other. My daughter and Che and the firefighter. So I love that. Yeah. That's something that we still talk about and laugh about, so that's great. I think they loved it too. Yeah. The firefighters had a good time and this year they, the firefighters had a little bit more time and so they actually turned on the hoses. Oh, wow. And that was kind of fun too, where the, they let the kids Haha. You know, but they let the kids pretend to hold the, the hoses and Yeah. And that was really fun too. Just that again, that hands-on learning and experiencing. Mm-hmm. So Brandon, one thing that's different about the clinic is that we, like you said, we have parents involved in the sessions, you know? Mm-hmm. And an active part of the therapy team. Um, and we're fortunate to have a facility that can do that and have the flexibility for that. Can you talk a little bit about, what that as a parent, how that was helpful to you and what your thoughts are on that? Yeah, I think, I think it allowed me to just have a kind of a better understanding of the overall plan. You know, go when check received services elsewhere. You don't necessarily get the whole layout of, you know, where the kind of the roadmap of the therapy plan and here. Chet's main speech issue was an articulation issue. So he took that initial articulation test and all the speech errors were circled on there, and basically the whole form was circled, all of them. And that was just, pretty. You know, kind of, uh, deflating and alarming as a parent. Sure. But, you know, Serena was able to talk us through what the, the overall plan was. We knew we had two years to work through this. We're just gonna kind of tackle this one sound at a time and this are some of the ways we're gonna be able to do that. So I think, yeah, it just gave me a lot of comfort as a parent to just have more understanding of, we're not just coming in and just work, pulling some random sound out of the sky. Not that anybody's doing that, but. Just Right. But it gave you some context to understand, right. The what and how and why. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then you, I don't know, I didn't try to do a lot of like speech therapy at home, but I did learn a lot about speech therapy throughout that time by being in the room. And, I left it up to the professionals for the most part. But I was able to do some inter, you know, my, me and my wife both were able to kind of do some interventions at home too, and to know. What to look for, like as far as like a tongue placement for a certain sound. Mm-hmm. And things like that, so. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. and, and I know that, we, as therapists, we talk about like, when you catch them using the right sound, like, oh, I heard you use your, maybe you name the sound or you talk about the placement. Like, oh wow. you put your tongue up to the front. That's awesome. I saw that. That was great. Yeah. And so you did that at home for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Those little pieces of feedback throughout the day are so important. They're so helpful. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then so when he started, he was a little bit older. He was about three, three and a half. Yep. And so, but then with a lot of the sound errors, there was probably some difficulties with him being understood by peers. Mm-hmm. And even probably other members of your family. So did Chet have like what we call a communication frustration? Was he like using different methods to get his point across? Like how did you guys work through that? Yeah, Chet was a very frustrated young child, young boy for sure. And you know, before we got down the road deeper into therapy, I got a lot of insight from Nancy actually at his evaluation where. They, she tested his expressive language and his receptive language, and his receptive language scores were, quite high. And his expressive scores were off the charts low. So he had this huge gap of, what he understood and what he was able to communicate, and that caused a ton of frustration for him. I like it would for anybody of course. But you know, before hearing Nancy articulate that to us, you're kind of like guessing. You're guessing you're trying to figure out like what else is going on, you know? Mm-hmm. And so that was, it was, we knew there was a lot of work ahead of us, but at least we had that kind of knowledge, like, there's a reason for this and, we can impro work on improving his speech and this will likely improve at the same time, you know? What kind of behaviors did he have to show he was frustrated? Just general anger. I would say. Just crabby. Crabby, angry, and yeah. And, um, you know, as you're, as you're, I'm a stay at home dad, so I spent a lot, I continued to spend a lot of time with Chet and, so you learn a lot about different ways to communicate things. One thing that I did that we learned with Chet is he had a lot of patience for repeating himself and trying to get you to understand, but as soon as you just started trying to guess and fill in the blanks for him, then he would get very immediately, very frustrated. Oh, okay. So, so he was okay working through it, but didn't want you to be Yeah. Guessing for him. Yeah. And then so as a family we knew that, and we try to be patient with that, but then you're out. People wanna be helpful, you know? Of course. And so they would start just trying, oh, I think he's saying this, I think he's saying this. And you get 10 people saying the wrong thing. And yeah, that would be frustrating for anyone. Of course it could be. But um, but yeah, as, as his speech has improved, his frustration is you. Melted away. Oh, okay. So yeah, he was a very, very happy kid when I saw him in the clinic and he was getting his point across. Yes, there was still some errors, but that's the thing, right? Mm-hmm. As you worked at these like, almost like sound classes at a time, so not, maybe not just like one sound, but it was like working on all of these sounds that have like the airflow, the, the, the, you know, and then, and getting those and getting some of those other ones. And so then we, you could still understand him even though he still had a few errors. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, um, he was very happy about that. one thing that Serena had mentioned when Chet first started here, was that he was making a lot of like his own, like, unique errors. Like I think there's a lot of common speech error that. A lot of kids make, but Che's speech errors were very much like his heirs, like he was speaking his own language. Yeah. The idiosyncratic errors, which, as a parent at a, per a primary caregiver, we were, I was able to figure those out and understand him, but. strangers outside of context had, almost really no chance of being able to understand what he was saying, so, so I'm glad that you were able to be there and step in that gap. What about his siblings? Did his siblings try to take over and say, oh, he wants this or anything like that? Sometimes, especially when he was younger. Yeah, I think definitely the older sister definitely tried to do her best to fill in the blanks and sometimes that was helpful and sometimes that was. Less helpful, but yeah, I think yes, I think siblings have a bond and a special bond and she was able to figure out his needs quicker than we were, at times. But also that probably hindered Chet's speech development as well to have an older sibling talking for you too, but, well, I love that he didn't, he didn't give up on trying to communicate. Mm-hmm. sometimes kids, if they're really frustrated, they'll just stop trying. Mm-hmm. They'll just give up and say, it's not, it's not even worth it. Mm-hmm. So I think that's great that he had that in him to say, no, I'm gonna stick with it until you understand. Yep, yep. It was his grit, but also your patience, right? Yeah. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. And that, and isn't that the combo? Right. because Chet really did have to work Yeah. To get these, these sounds into his repertoire. And so we do our best as therapists and. To, make it fun to make it appropriate for, the appropriate targets. Meaning that that's something that he can, is achievable and then you guys are like just reinforcing it. And, and so that's, it really is that whole circle that you know of like we're all working together and, but yeah, we don't wanna take, you know, Chet's piece outta the puzzle. 'cause he really was the star of this show of getting so much more intelligible. Mm-hmm. Because I think everybody can understand him now. He still might. In fact, I mean, gimme give us an update. Does he still have some speech therapy at school right now? Yeah. So Che's Che's in kindergarten, at Lowell Elementary, and he continues to receive, speech services there. He's continues to work extremely hard there. We get very positive reports from his speech therapist. At school, we just had a an IEP meeting and a follow up from his latest articulation. Evaluation and I think the last time he had taken that through the school, he had something like 115 speech errors or something around there. And now this last test, he had like 55 speech errors. So Wow, a big difference continues to. Work extremely hard and yeah. Yeah. It's hard work for these kids. They put a lot into it and I for sure sometimes tell parents, like, imagine if someone were to say to you, okay, you know, all of the P sounds that you make PP change that to a, uh, F mm-hmm. And go, just do it as you're speaking. You know, and it's hard. It's a lot of work. They really have to retrain, um, their brain and how they're making these sounds and hearing the sounds and yeah, it's been. Interesting. As he spent three years at preschool here in town and the first year, you had to have these long meetings with his teachers and explain like he's very hard to understand and you're kind of explaining he's patient for repeating things but not so patient for you guessing and you have all these meetings and their work, they were wonderful and did all of these things to try to support Chet in his speech and. You know, when we started his third year of preschool, we had missed our pre-year meeting. We were out of town and I, we were like a week into the school year and it dawned on me like, oh man, we never talked to 'em about Che's speech. So I emailed them and they're like, oh no, no issues whatsoever. Like, so it was just, as you look back you can really see the growth, but as you're kind of living it, it's, you know, kind of little by little by little over the course of two, three years. And so yeah, that was kind of a eye-opening moment to realize he still has work to do. He still has long ways to go, but, he's functioning, he has a very functional, uh, level of speech now, so. Right. It's a process. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And Tamara, I love that grit. It's a combination of grit and patience. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I haven't heard that before. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so with Che having siblings, did the siblings ever have, and I know that they're school age, but did any of them, like, especially in the summer, Use our childcare, you know, where Andy and Emily are, kinda like watching them en engaging them in activities so that they have a special place to go. Yeah. In the summer, my um, Chet's older sister had to, she came with us, you know, pretty much to every single session. So, um, she was here and she looked forward to coming too 'cause she knew she was gonna get to play the games with, um, Andrea and Emily. So good. Yeah, that was super helpful. For sure. Did she have any like special go-to that? She's like, we're gonna do this. I, I don't, I don't remember any specific games. She's very, very, very competitive. So they were playing board games probably. Yeah. She showed no mercy too. But, uh, yeah, she, she always had a fun time here too, so. And that's love. That's, that's, yeah. I love that. That we can do that here too. I think that's that one extra little piece, because then you could be in the sessions. Yeah. And then, and you knew that everyone was being loved and taken care of and mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. And it gives her that sense of purpose and importance too. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Well, I'm glad that you were able to take advantage of that too. Brandon, what advice would you give other parents who are at the beginning of their journey and are thinking their child might be having difficulty with communication? Yeah. Well, I think, I think the first, I mean, most, basically the first step would be not to wait. Mm-hmm. You can get in here for an evaluation and start evaluating your needs like I had mentioned earlier. My wife and I have tried not to get too wrapped up in milestones and try to kind of understand that kids develop on their own timeframes. But I think, it doesn't hurt to have an evaluation, certainly. Right. Um, I think you, it's important to know you may end up on a wait list, so I, the earlier you start, you know, the earlier you can start receiving services, I think it's important to know that, or to remember that you're on your own. Once you do start down therapy, if that's where you have to go, you're on your own journey and it doesn't serve you to compare your journey to other people. You just have to kind of trust, trust the process and just kind of keep working through it. There's no point. There's no point in comparing yourself to other people. I think it's okay to acknowledge that what you're going through is really difficult, but ob like ultimately you just need to keep, putting in the work and encouraging your child to keep putting in the work and, to keep growing and to trust that, things, if you keep putting in the work, things are gonna improve and you're gonna get where you're, where you're trying to go. So I think another thing I would mention, I talked to a parent recently who's. Son had some pretty profound speech delays and I had asked him if they had ever looked into getting services here and he said that they had, but that there was a year long wait list and that they couldn't wait a year. And I guess what I would say is. Get on the wait list. That doesn't mean you can't keep, he, his son was receiving services already. You know, so you can be on the wait list here and you can keep receiving services Absolutely. Where you're going. So, and you can always decide when we contact you if, if you're enrolled in other services and are doing great, that's awesome. You don't have to, come on board. But yeah. So it gives you that, that option. Yeah, I, it kind of broke my heart to hear him just dismiss it. 'cause it was such a. Transformational place for our family and for Chet. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, and that makes me think of our, our wait list and, you know, it is high. And part of it is because we are a free clinic, we don't charge anything. Mm-hmm. For our services, for our field trips, for our parent education courses or anything, we are funded solely through grants and donations. Mm-hmm. So that community support is huge. So for people listening, if you're ever interested in helping out this mission, donations are always welcome. Yeah. And then I love that you pointed out that an evaluation doesn't hurt and so the evaluations are at no cost. So even if you end up getting services somewhere else, mm-hmm. There's this laid out plan like Nancy did so that you just were able just to show help me grow. And they just were able to use those results and they're like, oh yeah. I mean they probably did some of their own evaluation, but they were able to take her notes and Yeah. And test scores and. Yeah. This, this child qualifies for needing some services. Yeah. Yeah. It certainly simplified the process for us to move forward, to receive services in the interim. And those are the services that he actually still receives today? Yeah. Mm-hmm. You know, through the school district, so, okay. When you did get referred to the clinic, did you kind of like know what you were getting into? Like did you know that we were a nonprofit and didn't charge parents? Or did you know that we were like a very family based and had that family parent involvement or was that all like in the first session your therapist was like explaining it to you? Yeah. Uh, when we started here I knew that. It was going to, it was that it was free speech therapy, at no charge. So I did know that. I think as I talk about Masonic Clinic to other people now, it's one thing to say it's free. I think that's kind of hard for people to even understand or believe. And on top of free, it's, I always explain, it's not like you're reimbursed through your insurance or, you know, it's like, it's so simple. Mm-hmm. I don't remember a lot of arduous forms and paperwork to start. And, it's just free, free, free, not, you just call and you get, you get started. Yeah. So I think, you know, I've listened to previous episodes of this podcast and, with guests whose children have autism and things like that, and they talk about the arduous paperwork and forms to receive the, various therapies. And, I think on top of the fact that it's free. Here. Just the simplicity of just getting started and, not having to really navigate any bureaucracy or red tape or reimbursement or anything like that is pretty, pretty amazing. And, you know, you're going through a, a difficult thing with your child. So to eliminate those barriers is great. Well, we're glad we could do that for you and for. The 30 years that almost that we've been, you know, providing through services. Mm-hmm. So it is definitely a, I feel very blessed to be able to work here and be part of that. Mm-hmm. Yes. It's definitely a gift for us. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Is there anything else you wanted to add? Yeah. Um, so I've been a stay at home dad, uh, for my two kids for the last, you know, since my daughter was born eight years ago and now Chet in kindergarten. So I've somewhat in, in this transition phase of life and I've been doing a lot of work with, a local nonprofit and some fundraising at my church and. I think a helpful framework for people to think about is, thinking globally, but acting locally. So there's a lot of big issues in the world and if you try to solve all these big issues at the global scale, it can be overwhelming, but, your money, your gifts local can make huge impact, on your community. And I think. Our family's experience here at the Masonic Clinic was transformational for our family and for Chet. And I think, a local gift to an organization like the Masonic can have huge, huge impacts on your community, so Right, and, and you know, early intervention, you're not just affecting the now mm-hmm. You're affecting like, the whole trajectory of their development and who they'll become, and I just think that's so powerful. Mm-hmm. And we're so thankful to families like yours that Yeah. You know, you let us share that joy of your child mm-hmm. And spend that time with you. So thank you for that. Yeah. Thank you. You. Thank you for sharing your story and Chet's story and then as it contin,, as he's continuing on and we know he'll continue to be successful. That wraps up this episode of Hear Me Out. Thanks so much for listening. Be sure to subscribe, share the podcast with others, and join us next time as we continue learning from the professionals, parents and donors who make this work possible and celebrate the amazing kids we serve. To learn more about the Masonic Children's Clinic or to support our mission of providing free speech, language and hearing services, visit our website and consider making a donation. Every gift helps us give children the voice they deserve. Visit us at masonic children's clinic.org.