Dr. Sharon Gainforth* | NeuroAI Team
There is a curious assumption built into many healthcare systems.
We work incredibly hard to help children and families access services.
We recognize how meaningful it can be when families finally receive answers and have a clearer path toward understanding and support.
We schedule appointments with dedicated professionals who genuinely want to help.
And then…
We ask families to wait.
Sometimes it’s a few weeks.
Sometimes it’s months.
Sometimes it’s even longer.
What surprises me isn’t that waiting exists. Healthcare systems everywhere are under pressure, and clinicians are doing the very best they can with the resources they have.
What surprises me is that we often treat waiting as though nothing important is happening.
As if time simply pauses until the next appointment.
But any parent of a neurodivergent child will tell you otherwise.
Waiting is anything but neutral.
Life doesn’t stop because you’re on a waitlist.
Children continue to grow. They discover new interests, develop new challenges, learn new skills, and experience new frustrations. Families continue navigating bedtime battles, school concerns, meltdowns, therapy homework, difficult phone calls, and endless questions.
Every single day, development continues.
The wait is full of life.
Imagine planting a garden.
You wouldn’t place seeds in the soil, walk away for six months, and expect everything to flourish on its own.
You water.
You check the soil.
You pull a few weeds.
You adjust to the weather.
Small actions, repeated consistently, are what allow growth to happen.
Child development works much the same way.
Progress isn’t built only during the hour spent with a therapist.
It’s built in thousands of tiny moments that happen at breakfast, in the grocery store, during bath time, on playgrounds, and while reading the same bedtime story for the forty-third time.
Those everyday moments matter.
Parents often tell me they worry about “doing the wrong thing” while they’re waiting.
The truth is, doing nothing is usually the greatest missed opportunity.
That doesn’t mean families should be expected to replace clinicians.
Absolutely not.
Parents shouldn’t have to become speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, psychologists, or developmental pediatricians overnight.
But they can become confident partners in their child’s journey.
They can learn how to recognize communication attempts before words emerge.
They can discover simple ways to support regulation during difficult moments.
They can understand why transitions are hard.
They can begin seeing behaviour as communication instead of simply something to manage.
They can celebrate strengths that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Knowledge doesn’t replace therapy.
It prepares families to make the most of it.
By the time the next appointment arrives, parents who have been supported often ask different questions.
They notice patterns.
They bring richer observations.
They understand the “why” behind recommendations.
Instead of starting from scratch, the clinical conversation begins further along.
And clinicians benefit too.
Rather than spending valuable appointment time covering basic education or trying to reconstruct months of family experiences from memory, they gain a clearer picture of what has actually been happening.
Everyone arrives more informed.
Everyone moves forward together.
This is why I believe we need to rethink what “care” really means.
Care shouldn’t begin when someone walks through the clinic door.
It shouldn’t disappear the moment they leave.
Care should exist across the entire journey.
Waiting shouldn’t mean wondering.
It shouldn’t mean searching random internet forums at two o’clock in the morning.
It shouldn’t mean feeling alone while trying to make sense of a child’s behaviour.
Instead, waiting can become a time of learning.
A time of growing confidence.
A time of building connection.
A time when families feel supported rather than simply queued.
Because the waiting period isn’t empty space between appointments.
It’s one of the most important chapters in the entire care journey.
And perhaps the biggest opportunity we have in pediatric healthcare isn’t shortening every waitlist overnight—although we should certainly keep trying.
Perhaps it’s making sure that while families are waiting…
They are never waiting alone.
Because children don’t stop developing while they’re waiting.
Parents don’t stop parenting while they’re waiting.
So support shouldn’t stop either.
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* Dr. Sharon Gainforth is a Speech-Language Pathologist with over 35 years of expertise as a subject matter expert on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). She is also the Chief Business Development Officer, Chief Content Officer and Co-Founder of NeuroAI.
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