Bryan and Jacob DeMay of Bonne Terre, Missouri, are among the families receiving services from the Scottish Rite Childhood Mobile Kidtalk Program in Farmington, Missouri, since February 1997. Bryan, six, and Jacob, five, are the oldest of the DeMay's three children. Both Bryan and Jacob were having a difficult time communicating at an early age. Bryan did not begin to speak until he was three years old, and, when he developed some language skills, his speech was very difficult to understand. His mother, Fran, stated she only understood about half of Bryan's words, and others had an even more difficult time understanding him. Bryan was becoming "sad, frustrated, and angry" when he was not able to communicate with friends and family. Jacob, too, had difficulty being understood by others as his speech development was severely delayed compared to his peers.

Fran also was becoming frustrated when her children were not able to communicate to her their basic wants, needs, and feelings. She began a search for help several years ago but found few speech and language services were available locally. She worked with her children at home but discovered more help was needed. Fran first heard about the Scottish Rite Clinic in Potosi, Missouri, and, although the drive to therapy was almost an hour away, she was excited to receive help for her children and scheduled a speech and language screening there. When the Farmington Mobile Van site was opened, Fran was able to bring her boys there.

Since beginning therapy a little over a year ago, Bryan and Jacob have made incredible progress. Bryan will be graduating within a short time. His speech is nearly 100% intelligible to all listeners, and he will be able to communicate easily with his teachers and friends when he begins first grade. Jacob also has improved his speech development. Fran works with Jacob and Bryan by constantly monitoring and enhancing their speech and practicing four to five times a week. She is grateful for the help received from the Scottish Rite Clinic; "You guys have been great, a Godsend, I don't know what I would have done without you."

Kathy Dent  is a speech-language pathologist with the Walker Scottish Rite Clinic for Childhood Language Disorders in St. Louis, Missouri, where she has been providing therapy since August 1997. She received her Bachelor's of Arts degree from Northeast Missouri State University in 1994 and her Master's of Science degree from Southwest Missouri State University in 1996. Her experiences in the speech–language pathology field include working in an outpatient clinic, a rehabilitation hospital, the public school system, and a nursing home. Kathy enjoys working with children and seeing their steady progress in attaining improved communication skills.