DC1 is 22mo and doesn't yet speak/regularly use words. I decided to take him to the Family Practitioner at our Children's Centre to find out about referrals for SALT as I've heard they can take quite a long time. The FP has referred him to the local SALT team and we've received a letter asking us to attend a special drop-in session in a few weeks to see a speech therapist, and then go from there. I was wondering if anyone could share their experiences of speech therapy/referrals? I don't know anyone who has taken their DC for these things and I'm just curious as to what others have done so all feedback is welcome!
I'll put some separate notes here as I found some old threads on speech and communication and people asked questions about other stuff, so I thought I'd include this below to try and save on drip feeding info 
His development overall is seemingly fine and I think he understands things quite well. He understands when we tell him not to do things, for instance, or to come over to us, to be gentle, to get down, or if we invite him to play something, call his attention for food or a drink. He uses gestures and pointing mainly for communication (eg bringing his beaker when thirsty, his blanket when tired, pointing at the clips on the highchair or buggy to be let out) and he also shows us things by taking us by the hand or putting things in our hands and directing us as to what to do. He joins in and also anticipates gestures for when we're singing songs or reading a book, and his latest joy is bringing me a book, sitting next to me, and taking my hand to point at pictures. When I tell him what the picture/item is he gets all giggly and moves to another (I admit, I love this 
).
Speech-wise he has one main word, when he's very frustrated he will say, "No no no no no". Very occasionally if he's really desperate for something he will say, "Mum mum", or when playing calls for "Dad dad" or "Daddyyyyy", but these are rather more random. He makes a lot of noise (!) but mainly sounding out lots of different things, like 'Wuh, wa, wo, vuh, pfft, dee, guh, nuh, ba, ooh, ah'. He does a fair bit of squeaking alongside that. He doesn't sound like he's talking with it, mainly making noises, but when he wakes up in the morning or sometimes when falling asleep is when he 'talks' to himself, ie it sounds much more like a stream of words (albeit ones that don't make sense to us).
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Expreriences of speech therapy/referrals? (toddler DC)
larryphilanddave · 15/10/2014 17:02
Thanks for your responses so far, it is helping me to form a picture in my mind and also prepare me for other possibilities, if it came to that
Back What you say sounds like what we might have here, the drop-in session we have been asked to attend is with SALTs at the main Children's Centre for an initial assessment whilst DC1's referral is in the system. I think from there they decide if he needs to be seen or prioritised or if something simpler is sufficient, so that's useful to know. I certainly wouldn't say that he has been determined to have a speech disorder as the FP openly said she is not an expert and is just there for signposting based on guidelines for milestones, so I guess we're still very early days.
ROAR Thank you, I have been wondering if we'll first get told about singing and reading and such, which of course is important, but we do that and have already implemented tips from the SALT from the activity that we did (it was a kind of toddler music thing aimed at developing understanding). Do you mind saying how your DD's word development went? DC1 has had 'no' since about 13mo, added 'daddy/dad dad' some time around 16-18mo, and 'mum mum' around 18-20mo. He will be 2yo in December and I had thought he would just have more words by now, I thought about it on and off before but it was at 20mo that I really started to wonder where they were! I hope it all goes really well in the one to one sessions and that they're very useful
I realise they're all different, we seem to be surrounded mainly by friends with DC who have spoken early - knowing them well and seeing them at home a lot, staying with them etc, they don't seem to have employed any extra special techniques that we've missed! We know one with a speech delay and that was due to a medical issue that required surgery, once that was treated they suddenly started speaking a lot. So it leaves us just a bit unsure as to what is 'average' or expected.
Jelly Thanks for that link, that's really handy. I'm thinking back to my speech as an infant (not from memory! My parents have a video of me aged 2-3), I spoke early apparently and had very good vocabulary, but I still said things like 'boon' instead of 'spoon' and had plenty of every day sounds and words I couldn't quite get the hang of until later. So it's good to remind myself that although DS may well be late in this aspect, it's not like I should be expecting perfect speech and sounds either
Thank you for sharing your experience Pass, I'll make sure we persevere with things, although different we've had to push sometimes in the past when we were certain of an issue so at least we're no stranger to that side of things.
I've become slightly more panicky just by thinking about this more (not a good idea!). DH keeps telling me to stop worrying. I've been paying attention to certain things, like how he does always respond to his name, but he doesn't really respond if I ask for his blanket or cup for example - that, or, he doesn't want to entertain my testing him I think I'm going to try and get back to the slightly more relaxed feeling I had prior to getting the letter for the SALT session, and just see how things go.
Just a short update, today after telling DS what we were up to and asking him if that sounded good (as we often do) DS gave an enthusiastic "Yeah!", whereas usually he doesn't give any response. We were so surprised that we ended up saying, "Yeah! Very good!" and we made him blush! (oops) 
He has added to his gestures (like waving if I say 'goodbye', pointing to which cup he wants to indicate juice or milk), so we'll see how things continue to develop.
Still another 2 weeks until we see the SALT team for the initial assessment.
Thanks sequeena, I keep hearing how long it can be 
I hope it's all going well for your DS though.
Just thought I'd update in case anyone is still on. We saw the SALT the other day for the initial assessment, they've given us some different activities and techniques to try and support DS' language and comprehension development. They're going to send us a copy of their report and they will refer him for a hearing test just to cover all of the bases. However the therapist felt that he was still quite young and that things were okay, although he doesn't use words he is communicating with us and understanding some things. I also recently discovered that DH didn't speak until somewhere between 2 and 3yo - he insists he told me before, I didn't remember
I was unsure before about if it was 'okay' to use gestures, or if he should be understanding words without any form of sign along with it, however she encouraged continuing to use gestures and signs, and to feel free to create our own. She also recommended adopting some simple words that can be repeated, like 'more', 'again', 'drink' etc. We do this with some things but I've started adding more in.
She also spoke about just commenting on what he does rather than asking - we were told this before at an activity we did, but then I couldn't remember which was around it was! So saying, "You are playing with the car" rather than "Are you playing with the car?" and such.
We're waiting now for the report and the hearing test referral, but I feel much more confident now and DS has even been making new sounds and 'words' - 'dada' is more common now, as is 'mum mum', which he had before but were not often used, and he also says 'yeah' a lot more, yesterday he said 'wha da' which took us by surprise as it just sounded so much like a proper set of words.
The activity we previously went to, which is supposed to help with understanding and communication, is starting again next week so we have signed DS up to try it out again as it seemed to help last time. They only do the activity in blocks so it's not an ongoing thing.
The therapist recommended we leave about 6 months to see how we get on, and if we develop any concerns in that time or if things haven't changed then we can go back for another assessment.
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