NHS - six sessions of speech therapy???? What the heck?

[mamadadawahwah]

My ds (2.4) started speech therapy today. The therapist (NHS) advised me he is only going to get six sessions!!! from her.

Is this other people's experience? My son doesnt have any words as such, just babbles still. He will be starting on the Hanen method but using teacch as well for object identification.

Any ideas on how I can get more speech therapy through NHS or do you have to fund this yourself?

Also, any ideas from anyone on the teacch method? I dont like it, a bit too environmentally structuring for my taste. Can anyone comment if it is a good place to start though??

I am so confused and frustrated with this. Something new every day on this asd roller coaster!

[Jimjams]

Fund it yourself. DS1 (age 6 non-verbal) had fewer than 6 NHS sessions between the ages of 2 and 5.

teacch is usually done in schools. It's ok for home but ABA/RDI are better and more fun.

[mamadadawahwah]

What would you be expected to pay jimjams for a speech therapist. I contacted one a long time ago and she said it was about £60.00 an hour.At three times a week, thats a lot of money!!

[mamadadawahwah]

Perhaps some of you have links to web sites which could teach me how to teach him language. this is my biggest worry in not getting it right and messing up his already acquired skills. I am really looking for someone with sensory integration background but here it is virtually impossible.

Why did i let myself expect so much!

[littlerach]

DD1 was given 6 sessions aged 3, she was very incoherent and disjointed in her speech. After these sessions she was re assessed and given weekly appts for about 3 months, then we had 6 weeks off, and she started again with fortnightly ones. They tend to give her a months break every 2 months or so, as children do get bored and fed up.

She now has been diagnosed with verbal dyspraxia and SALT will start seeing her again at school in September.

I have to say that we have found the whole experience brilliant, and our SALT is a lovely woman who really makes time for us.

Also, the speed in which DD1 caught up was suprising, as she became much more coherent and less up and down.

[littlerach]

Cross posted!

I can only speak about DD1, but our SALT really was helpful and gave us lots of exercises to do at home. They only lasted about 10 mins so DD1 was happy to do it.The most important thing for us was Modelling, repeating her words back in the correct way, and using "ladders" to get her to blend sounds together.

I am not sure about websites, there may be one called speechteach, or one about aspraxia, I haven't really used them.

[Jimjams]

usually it is about £50 / hour. Our long term (we saw her once a week over a year) was £35 for 40 mins. She was cheap though (and excellent- very very experienced in asd).

[Jimjams]

speechteach and apraxia kids are good for verbal dyspraxia, but not usually much use for autism.
TBH websites aren't that much use for autism because however much you can do, alot of autistic children will not do the exercises.

With a good ABA programme you wouldn't need much SALT to begin with. (Our good SALT did ABA tbh). A PECS experienced SALT could build lessons around PECS etc- but again that's really just ABA and experiences therapists/consultants would be doing that anyway.

[Jimjams]

For example littlerach mentions modelling and repeating words back- many autistic children don't understand about imitation - so you can't do that sort of SALT with them. ABA programmes start by teaching imitation. Teaching sound appporximations to autistic children can often be better achieved using a behavioural approach tbh.

[heartinthecountry]

dd saw the SALT precisely 3 times in the space of a year. Since starting at an SN nursery I am not entirely sure how often she has seen her SALT but I would be surprised if it was more than 10 times in the year.

dd is 2.10 with no speech.

It depends on where you live - but don't hold your breath. There is a massive shortage of SALTs.

[Davros]

The NHS does everthing in 6 sessions. Lawks knows why!

[eidsvold]

we had NO speech therapy for the whole time dd1 lived in the UK - we were unable to access anything.

Dh and I have jsut started training in the Hanen method. Hanen have a programme designed especially for children with autism. Unfortunately there is no one trained in that here in Australia so we have a parent also in part of our training group who has a little boy with autism. Interesting to see how it is adapted for him.

[coppertop]

SALT seems to be one thing that you can get around here - once you get to the top of the waiting list. Ds1 had one session a month as a pre-schooler. The SALT gave us activities to do between each appointment. The sessions were more about assessing ds1's progress over the previous month and then deciding whether he was ready for something else to do for the next month. We were lucky that by the time ds1 got to the top of the list he was starting to get the idea about copying people.

Ds2 also gets one session a month with extra activities. There was no waiting list this time as he'd already been assessed at the CDC.

Tbh the most SALT I've had offered is 3 x 20min sessions a week in school. Even then this was to be mainly carried out by an assistant or teaching staff under the supervision of the SALT.

[expatinscotland]

Yes, Davros is right, the NHS does physiotherapy in 6 sessions as well. 6 sessions and POOF!, DD's gross motor skills delays are gone. NOT.

[littlerach]

Sorry, didn't realsie it was in connection to autism, just saw SALT mentioned.

[Blossomhill]

Very lucky as dd gets hers onsite at school (language unit). One of the major factors that swung it for us between ms and unit placement. If dd had stayed in ms she was offered the usual 6 weeks off and 6 weeks on. Then the stuff was only going to be carried out by a TA.
When dd first went into the unit nursery she was given speech and language therapy everyday and she did catch up a lot with her expressive, receptive and vocab. Nowadays it is mainly the social side of language she needs help with and she receives 2 lots of SALT social skills groups per week.

[Davros]

The visits from a midwife after you've had a baby is supposed to be 6 I think. The research project I worked on that had a medical side also offered 6 visits (or not depending on which group someone was in). We laughed about the obsession with 6 sessions of everything....

[Dingle]

Well dd is 3.9 and has DS. She did get the odd seession after I had a little moan in the right ears, she must have been about 1 at the time. At nearly 2 she started SN nursery and was supposed to have regular SALT there. Only problem was, dd attended Monday and Thursday and the SALT only visited on Tuesdays!!!
It got to a point last year when we has a so called assessment at home by the SN nurserys SALT, and I was so fed up with the lack of help Amelia was getting. I found a private SALT specialising in DS and I share the cost of the sessions with another little boy who has DS. She charges £40 per hour.
To be honest though we have only had about 6 sessions. We are given target area and activities to work on and we carry out most of the work at home. We do use quite a lot of Jolly Phonics.

We have also had NHS sessions start up this year!!! I think that as a group of parents we have dug our heels in and the NHS have started to listen. ( I can dream, can't I) We had 5 group sessions started in January. These were very much on a trial basis and about 6 children with DS took part. We have also recently finished another block of 5 sessions, these were paired session, again with another child with DS.

At the hospital yesterday, I was informed that another block of 5 sessions are hopefully starting in September too!!!!

I can only hope that this change is permenant, as we will have gone from absolutely nothing, to having 15 (!!!) sessions in 1 year!!

[RnB]

Message withdrawn

[jenkins88]

RnB I'm and

Surely a child with no speech or language should be seen as a priority for SALT.

[Jimjams]

no jenkins ime they get nothing. Ds1 was given nothing until he started school (again he had no speech/language) because he was "too difficult to treat". Once at school he was categorised as the child in ms school with highest priority for salt in the city- he got something like 3 sessions on 1 year. He's only really got salt since moving to special school.

[jenkins88]

What a disgrace!

JJ if your son was classed as top priority and only received 3 sessions in a year, what kind of provision was given to children with less complex needs?

Is it a case of some communication difficulties being beyond the scope of SALTS or do we really have such a major shortage that in some areas 3 sessions per year is as good as you're gonna get?

[beccaboo]

We've had three lots of 4xhalf hour session in the last year. I didn't think that was much, but after reading others' experience it doesn't seem too bad.

We found a private speech therapist in the end, she charges £60 an hour. We got her to go into nursery and show them various exercises to do with ds, these are now attached to his IEP. That way he gets a little bit of attention every day, and we paid a one-off fee to the SALT.

[katylou25]

I used to run a theraeputic intervention programme (through education not NHS) for pre-schoolers on the spectrum, and found that they used to get blocks of 6 sessions, with 6 weeks off to practice what has been taught - so may well be then offered another block if felt it was needed - also SALT used to give programmes to us to follow may also be the case with schools/nurseries. Have you tried using PECS/TEACCH at home there are some great websites with resources - just use google. These,IMO tend to be the best to get started with children with lack of ability to imitate, or understanding of reasons for communication IYSWIM, as are very simple and have instant reward and therefore reinforcement.

[Fio2]

we didnt even get offered 6 sessions