Diagnosis of asd so therefore not entitled to speech therapy.

[benegesserit]

I have my son's annual review tomorrow and in the report from the speech therapist, she has stated that because he has this diagnosis he therefore doesn't have specific language needs, so he will only be entitled to 1 -2 hrs per year of provision. This is to include going to meetings and writing reports.Does anyone have any ideas how I refute this.

[benegesserit]

Thank you for replying. Believe it or not she has said that his language skills are extremely low for his age. We did ask her to explain how can a child with s & l problems not need therapy and all she said was "I know it's difficult to understand".

[benegesserit]

I had a report done privately , where it states that he needs intensive therapy but it was totally disregarded. The worst thing is that i've failed my son as he is now 10 years old and he has never had speech therapy and only started speaking at 6. In my last authority they wouldn't give him any either even after I got a solicitor involved , now we have moved and I'm going to have to go through it all again. But I am a real loss as what to do to get them to do anything. They just say no and that is that.

[Nigel1]

For ASD children there are 4 areas for investigation, Receptive/Expressive/ Semantic/ Pragmatic language.
Ask for a full CELF4 assessment including all of the sub tests and then additional assessment on semantic language. You also want the Language scores. You have a right to ask for this and if you do not get it ask for the contact details of the Principle SLT and take it up with her.
As whether the PCT regards semantic/ pragmatic language as being a SLT issue or an education issue.
If the scores have not improved over time then clearly the consultative model of therapy - here a programme the ta will run with does nto work time to move to a direct model of therapy - a SLT does direct therapy with the child.
Ask how many children on her workload gets an hour a week of direct 1:1 SLT therapy for more than 6 months unless they have a SSEN/Plan. If she can not give you the answer - the answer is none. Then ask if there is a policy not to provide direct therapy to children. Are they funded by the Education Authority to provide that level of support.

[benegesserit]

The Ta is not running a programme, there is no therapy at all. Her 1-2 hours a year is spent coming to annual reviews and typing letters. She does not have time to do a programme. I have also found out that the maximum a child could receive in my Lea is only 12 hrs per year.

[AYearofMinorMiracles]

Nigel - that was interesting - thank you.

Poor language - expressive or receptive or both = cannot access the curriculum.

DS2 has had 3 years of direct SALT at present school and was at a S&L unit for 2 before that. He has atypical autism, so yes, it is provided but we hit the brick wall 3 years ago, when the S&L placement finished and our county said that is it; there is nothing else. What they actually meant was the LA had nothing else but there was provision independently which you had to take them to Tribunal to access. It is a mad world. Good luck tomorrow.

[Icimoi]

If your local speech therapy provision is operating a blanket policy that they will never provide more than 12 hours a year regardless of the child's need, that is illegal. They have to provide what the child actually needs, and if more than that is put in a statement/ EHCP by the LA or tribunal the LA has to arrange it.

[Glittery7]

My daughter (6) and in mainstream has an ASD diagnosis and most of her therapy is for SAL. They are her main problems and massively affect her ability to access the curriculum.

[chocnomorechoc]

Has she actually seen your DS and done any assessments? Of the 1-2 hours a year cover meetings and report writing, there cannot be time left for actual therapy and assessments.

[benegesserit]

Just back from the annual review,the speech therapist again couldn't answer why a child with asd can't get therapy. Couldn't really answer any of our questions and left the meeting crying.

I feel slightly bad as I didn't set out to upset her but, she would not budge on her recommendations. Her attitude is he has asd, he's not going to get any better.

[chocnomorechoc]

Is it possible to appeal following an AR - after all they might not change the statement. Not sure how to go about things in that case (hopefully somebody more knowledgeable will come along) but if you can appeal then this is the route to take.

Give IPSEA a ring.

[benegesserit]

Thank you everyone, I have a meeting with the Lea next week and we'll see where it goes from there , I have learnt so much from reading back through all the special needs threads.

[chocnomorechoc]

Have you somebody to support you? Local parent partnership or so? I wouldn't go alone.

[benegesserit]

It's just me and my husband going next week but, if we don't get anywhere I will not hesitate to get legal advice.

Thanks Loup I agree that she should feel guilty but, I can't help but feel bad that I made her cry.

[AgnesDiPesto]

Usually with NHS slt there is what your child needs and what their service can provide and rarely do the two match, esp for asc. Most slt have 1 day asc training. Having had 3 Nhs slts, 1 private slt and aba programme I can tell you only 1 private slt who has some interest in aba has been worthwhile. The others have been pointless. Aba staff achieved far more with language.

NHS slts will write reports based on what their service can provide. It may well be this is all the service is resourced and equipped to do. I am not surprised she doesn't know what to do, that has been my experience of NHS SLT too.

The legal duty to meet your child's language needs lies with LA not NHS. It's the LA who can't have a blanket policy.

If the nhs can't provide a service to meet need the LA will have to buy it in privately - or under the new system you can request a personal budget or direct payments and buy it yourself. This is how we got private SLT by taking charge of the budget and finding a asc specialist slt who was willing to work with our aba team. The nhs slt were not willing to do so because it was so embarrassing how little they knew and it was very obvious when in a room with aba supervisor they were totally clueless

I would say as we did aba they had all the language stuff under control and have far better evidence base for success in teaching language than slt (Cochrane research shows standard SLT methods have little evidence for ASC). We found SLT only became useful when ds got to 3-4 keywords and even now we just use the private slt to advise ABA and do assessments, the language programmes are delivered by aba staff.

So I don't think you have to have a lot of slt input but if you don't you do need to have specialist asc education staff eg in a specialist placement, as part aba programme etc. if you don't have specialist teaching then you would need more SLT. it should be slt specialising in ASC.

I would write up your own minutes of AR as if you ever get near tribunal her report and comments will help you because LA will suddenly pop up saying NHS are offering all kinds of things they never offered before

Find something you think will meet need. It could be a specialist placement or buying in private support to mainstream.

If you have private report you can ask for what that recommended as a direct payment.

Its not too late, locally a ABA secondary school opened 2 years ago and most children had never had good slt at primary and never done aba before and the results already show the children have massively exceeded their previous levels progress in the first year or 2 of getting appropriate specialist secondary provision.

Go look at indep placements, research private asc slts. Find a solution you think will work and then it will be for the LA to prove it can match it which will be uphill struggle with this slt who they could never take to tribunal as a witness

Many SLT will generally believe children with asc can't learn language because they are so poorly trained they have never seen it done. It's easier to blame the child or the disability than blame themselves for being inadequately trained. Our NHS slt told us to give up on DS speaking and said it would be pointless to teach him language as it wouldn't ever be meaningful. We ignored them. He does now speak at 3-4 key words / short phrases. He will need intensive language input for many more years, but I am so glad I ignored them because even a bit of language has transformed his life. Without it he would be much more frustrated and his behaviour would be much more challenging.

[benegesserit]

Thanks Agnes , we have got an ABA therapist (not actually started any yet) and she is the only person to have ever said what my son's strengths are and to come up with a plan. I just assumed that as my son needs speech therapy that the lea would have to provide it.

Wont make that mistake ever again. I'm going to get the ABA started as soon as possible, luckily the school are brilliant and seem to be on our side and that helps a lot.

[senvet]

Bene Hi

I would definitely appeal as soon as possible.

The National Autistic Society have a scheme to supoprt parents with appeals. It is a helpline scheme and run by volunteers who have been trained up in the law and regulations etc and the technoques to appeal.

You ring and leave a message and then they call you back.

You already have enough to file an appeal (except that you need a mediation certificate if you don't have a statement already).

The reasons for appeal can just be that your independent SALT says daily therapy, and the LA SALT says none, so you need to resolve that.

ABA is great, but your dc will have to spend a lot of time in school, so it is still best to get an appeal to help school get the resources they need to make the best use of dc's time there.

NAS number is:-
0808 800 4102

Good Luck

[StarlightMcKenzee]

'he has ASD he's not going to get any better' is not a comment you woukd want to hear from a professional working with your chikd.

He won't lose his ASD, but his symptoms that can cause his disadvantage and distress can definately get better.

Be careful what you fight for. You coukd spend twice as long subsequently trying to get rid.

[2boysnamedR]

Omg! Do NOT feel guilty about her crying! I am sick to my stomach of unprofessional people. Who does that? How many tears have you cried? A river more than her I'd beat and she goes home to peace, we never get a end to this.

Appeal. I know it's bloody hard. I only know now how hard it is.

Don't ever feel like you let your child down. If enough people repeat a lie with conviction it becomes the truth.

[StarlightMcKenzee]

Why was she crying? Was she the one with a child who was being refused services? Was she the one who can't ever get a job due to unmet speech and language needs?

No? Thought not!