South County Speech & Language Center
Owner: Kristin King Iden
Type of Business: Private outpatient speech, language and voice therapy
and evaluation center for children and adolescents.
Location: 1130 Ten Rod Road, Suite D-104, North Kingstown (moving to
the other side of Ten Rod Road in October)
Year Founded: 2000
Employees: Four
Annual Sales: roughly $250,000
The waiting room is small, cozy and full of colorful toys for children: building
blocks, word games, puzzles, plus a toddler-sized table and chairs with pencil-shaped
legs. Pictures of a hippo, a zebra, an elephant and sheep decorate the walls.
For those who can read, there’s also a big chart, detailing the normal speech and language development phases for children from birth to age 7. If a boy or girl is here, chances are they’ve fallen behind on the chart. Kristin King Iden and her two staff therapists can help them catch up.
They work with 2-year-olds who still haven’t learned to talk, and toddlers who look utterly puzzled when their mom asks simple questions like, “Want some milk?” They help children who talk unintelligibly; first-graders who can’t grasp what their teacher says to them; little girls who struggle to read “cat” and “hat,” and boys who’ve made it to sixth grade but can barely read or write.
Working one-on-one, they effectively reprogram their young clients’ brains through word-focused games, intensive exercises and repetition. “Milk” leads to “want milk,” and eventually to, “Mommy, can I have some milk, please?” Letters and sounds take shape in the children’s minds; mumbles and stutters disappear.
The toughest cases, such as children with autism-spectrum disorders, may need years of therapy, Iden says. But a good half of her clients just need a little boost – and especially if they can get it by age 3, they’ll be fine.
“The earlier that we give it to them, the better,” Iden says. “Fifty percent of our kids are just developmentally delayed, but they won’t catch up on their own.”
Most of Rhode Island’s speech and language therapists work within school systems; children get their help as part of the individual educational plan they get when they’re designated as “special-needs” students. Others work with the state’s Early Intervention program, which provides home visits for children under 3.
Iden, who earned her master’s degree in speech and language pathology from the University of Rhode Island in 1997, decided to go a different route. By the time she got her certification, she had a daughter, Emily, now 7, and she was pregnant with her son Noah. “I decided that private work would be more flexible for them,” she says.
Iden started small, going to people’s houses, treating a handful of children whose parents happened to know her. Word-of-mouth recommendations kept building up her roster, however, and soon she realized she needed her own space.
Iden and a longtime friend – a “phenomenal” fellow therapist – leased a suite at The Meadows, a complex off Ten Rod Road in North Kingstown, calling their practice the South County Speech & Language Center. But Iden’s age (she was 29) and her heavy student-loan debt made it hard to get financing. And then she was pregnant again, with her son Nicholas, raising concerns that she wouldn’t be able to carry a big enough work load. Her partner backed out. It was an amicable split, Iden says – though still a major blow.
Yet Iden stuck it out, and with help from the Providence-based Center for Women & Enterprise, she revamped her business plan and got a $46,500 loan from Fleet Bank. She hired an office manager and got extra therapists to help her on a per-diem basis. She worked through her pregnancy and went straight back to work after Nicholas was born.
Because insurance providers could take over six months to pay her, her cash flow made it hard to cover a payroll, so Iden carried the brunt of the caseload. It wasn’t until last year, when she got a $10,000 line of credit from the Minority Investment Development Corporation, that she was able to hire two therapists full time. They now have 50 to 55 clients, she says, and have treated about 200 children since the clinic opened.
Iden charges $90 to $100 per hour, saving two or three slots per year for families who can’t afford to pay. Insurance covers costs for children under 3, but typically not for clients ages 3 to 21, who are expected to get their services at school.
Iden tries to offer something worth the extra cost: a very caring environment, individual attention and opportunities for parents to be more involved. Private, one-on-one therapy is also more intensive, Iden says, so children could go see her for a year instead of spending three years or longer in special-education classes.
Just as things had really come together, in December, Iden was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Iden had to be hospitalized repeatedly, her body overwhelmed by the hours and hours of painful treatments.
“In the beginning, I was very gung-ho,” she says. “I thought I could schedule my chemotherapy on a Thursday and come in on a Friday. It didn’t work out.” The staff “took on a lot of responsibility on their own. I’m thankful for that, because we wouldn’t still be here, probably, otherwise.”
Iden is now done with her cancer therapy, and if she remains cancer-free for the next three years, she says, her prospects will be strong for the long term. She plans to return to work in October, though only part time. Also in October, the clinic will be moving to a new development on the opposite side of Ten Rod Road. She may hire another full-time therapist then, she says, but she doesn’t want to grow much more.
“I think part of the reason that we can do this well,” she says, “is because we are small, and I can be involved and get to know all of the parents.”
