For a young child struggling to speak, communicate, move, or meet developmental milestones, time is of the essence when it comes to getting services that can help them catch up. Yet families seeking pediatric therapies can experience many challenges, such as getting onto a provider’s schedule in a timely manner, or finding a provider who speaks their language or takes their insurance. Sometimes parents don’t even know what kind of therapy their child needs — they just know that something is off.

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“Kids are changing every day, every hour even. Six or seven months is a long time to lose!” says Luba Patlakh-Kaplun, a local speech-language pathologist and orofacial myofunctional therapist. “In the time they’d be waiting to get off a list, kids could be making progress with their speech, behavioral needs, OT, or PT with us,” she says about Kidology, a multi-therapy and developmental agency she founded in 2014.

Patlakh-Kaplun has spent more than a decade trying to shorten the distance between kids who need developmental help and the people who can provide it. The first barrier she noticed was one she understood firsthand: language.

When she started helping kids 13 years ago, Patlakh-Kaplun found plenty of bilingual Spanish-speaking providers, but very few who spoke both Russian and English. That presented a major obstacle for the families Patlakh-Kaplun served in Northeast and upper North Philadelphia, home to at least 43,000 immigrants from Russia, Ukraine, and other parts of Eastern Europe.

The problem hit close to home for Patlakh-Kaplun. Her own family emigrated from Kyiv, Ukraine, to Northeast Philly in 1989, when she was two, before moving to Bucks County. Russian was her first language; she learned English in ESL classes at school.

So, when she encountered Russian-speaking parents struggling to understand their children’s developmental needs, the gap felt personal.

“I started to recognize that I could really help my community — the bilingual Russian-English community — in better understanding their child’s needs and giving them the services that they actually were looking for,” she says.

She started Kidology as a speech-therapy business, but soon encountered another problem: A child who needs speech therapy may also need occupational, physical, behavioral, or myofunctional therapy, requiring parents to navigate multiple providers and systems. Kidology grew into a multidisciplinary practice offering all of those services to patients, from newborns through age 21, with two brick-and-mortar locations in Southampton and Northeast Philadelphia. (They have a third location in Florida.) The PA locations accept 14 insurance plans, including all medical assistance programs.

In the time they’d be waiting to get off a list, kids could be making progress with their speech, behavioral needs, OT, or PT with us.” — Luba Patlakh-Kaplun, Kidology

Parents, many who are also learning English, have gone online to praise Kidology. One mom touts services for a three-year-old with autism who learned to make eye contact there. Another gushes over play-based speech therapy. Many recommend specific staffers. Others simply shout out affordable open play time on weekends.

Both centers feature play spaces, and time in the gym is often built into clients’ therapy sessions, with providers walking kids through proper use of equipment, core strengthening exercises, and language, listening, and transition skills. The Northeast location is more sensory-focused, while Southampton is more of an indoor jungle gym.

For parents who don’t know what exact services their child needs, Kidology staff will perform a global evaluation, and issue a formal evaluation report, goals, and a timeline for support. The goal is to remove some of the burden parents carry of having to figure out the system before they can even get their child into it.

Then there’s the biggest problem: time.

Getting help, fast

Pediatric-therapy waitlists, which can often keep kids in need waiting for months, have been a growing issue for years, as demand has increased faster than the supply of qualified providers. The pandemic appears to have made matters worse: A 2023 national poll by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association found that 69 percent of speech-language pathologists were receiving more referrals and requests for pediatric evaluations than before the onset of COVID.

Research has also raised concerns about children born during that period. A 2024 study that followed pandemic-born infants during their first two-and-a-half years found poorer language development compared to children born before the pandemic, including differences in word learning and language milestones.

A waitlist isn’t the only thing that can keep a child from treatment. Sometimes the problem is simply getting to the appointment.

Last year, that realization led Patlakh-Kaplun to put Kidology services on wheels. The organization’s year-old therapy bus travels throughout Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware counties — all within one hour of the Southampton headquarters — bringing evaluations and treatment to families who struggle to reach a clinic.

“A lot of the children we work with [are in the midst of] custodial battles, or their caretaker might not drive or have a car — but they still need services,” Patlakh-Kaplun says. “The bus gives us the opportunity to gather our therapists in one place and meet families anywhere, whether that’s in front of their house, at a park, or at a playground.”

The bus used to service a school district and is about the size of a bright purple touring PHLASH, only way more colorful, and with more rainbows. For a kid, it’s also way more fun, thanks to sensory mats and toys like foam blocks and kinetic sand. Of course, there’s also space and equipment for clinical screenings.

Since its inception, Kidology has served more than 150,000 families and employs 110 people full-time.

Patlakh-Kaplun continues to find ways to support kids who need it. She plans to open a third center, in Center City, in the near future. And this past May, she published a children’s book, Bobo Wears a Bowtie, which focuses on building confidence and finding your voice.

That message, she says, resonates with Kidology’s mission and work-in-action: “A lot of kids come [to Kidology] who don’t believe in themselves, but with the right mindset and support, I think everybody’s capable and anything’s possible.”

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