Yes, I am a speech-language pathologist.
One of the big challenges, especially when we're talking about that zero-to-three age, is that we currently don't have speech-language pathologists embedded in day cares. They're not there. A lot of times, the primary point of care—family physicians or early childhood educators—don't necessarily feel comfortable in recognizing and identifying speech, language or communication delays.
We can think about it like an invisible crisis. If it's physical, you might see it, but for speech-language delays, it's something that is harder and nuanced. It's not invisible to us as speech-language pathologists. We see it, but we're not in the places where we can get the child to access the services that they need.