Advice re ASF support

[Seahorsesplendour]

Hi all just after some thoughts from your wealth of experience. Have an assessment coming up (finally!) for some support through ASF for ds 7yr old. With us since 4/12.

Currently going through ehcp process with school for general delay in all areas.

We asked for post adoption support post moving about a year ago as we suddenly started seeing a lot of behaviours we hadn’t seen previously. We expected some challenges but it was way harder than we expected.

we used lots of theraplay activities lots of connective parenting and use of PACE etc and we’re in a much better place.

Our old LA put us on a parenting course which has been great with some new ideas & reinforcing old ones.

Our new LA put us on waiting list & after various chasing we’re finally booked for assessment! He isn’t aware of this at present.

in the last few weeks he is suddenly having significant separation anxiety at the point of transitions but it’s affecting school & after school activities and has not been an issue since preschool nursery. We don’t think the places are the problem as for example if grandparent takes him he goes in fine and none of the places are new! He will go to grandparents fine.

we have reverted to using hearts drawn on arms, doing the invisible string work book, object of permanence etc and does seem to be helping.
we’re Also employing lots of sensory support as that seems to be key eg using yoga ball to get him dressed on. (It’s amusing!!), chewies help a bit, lots of gym type activities. & trampoline at home, outdoor time etc.

sorry it’s so long I’m just trying to give context

my Q is I have no idea what type of support to ask for, should we dig more into the sensory side, might some kind of therapy help, drama group or something to build confidence away from us; I feel life story stuff probably needs to come bit later .

I haven’t heard great things about the authority (after moving sadly) so I want to be clear about what is best for him as well as trying to keep an open mind during assessment!

thanks if you made it this far & I know it’s hard to judge on the info given but any advice welcome & can add to our bank of thoughts!!!

Hi. It sounds like you are doing all the right things.

Therapy was never transformative for my children. It was very much a case of living our lives a certain way and taking things at the children's pace and using therapy to help move things along.

We did loafs of sensory stuff but didn't get much professional help. One of my daughters went to a specialist secondary school which had a lot of OT support. It still didn't transform her, but it was all helpful. I think a lot of this stuff is about us learning how to scaffold the world for our children.

Anyway, lots of outdoor play, horse riding or trampolining, not overstaying with other people, messy play, indoor ball parks, swimming.....

And take whatever else you are offered. I would strongly suggest a speech and language assessment if you can get one, but that wouldn't be via the asf.

Hi @Arran2024 thank you for replying, really appreciate it.

he had salt input in reception as developed a stammer (not in school) but was marked at home especially when excited! He didn’t do it when being assessed but we had videos . We did a course on how to manage st home and this has now resolved. Can I ask what input SALT gave & how it was helpful? Just to know if would add anything for ds. We can self refer in our area but would need a reason!

the scaffolding thought is useful and you’ve helped me manage my expectations , I was starting to pin my hopes on therapy being the key & while I’m still hopeful it’ll help I guess our everyday responses are the most important!

it would really just help … on weeks like this which feel like we’re living on land that is constantly shifting and rebalancing and rebalancing just to avoid a huge violent outburst which then happens anyway … to know it all works out for him .

The secondary school I wanted my daughter to attend was actually a specialist speech and language provision, so we got a SAL assessment carried out privately. It found that she had a clinical speech and language disorder - we had no clue. She spoke ok. I know you mentioned the stammer but this is only a tiny part of SAL.

Our daughter had particular problems with receptive language ie decoding what people said to her. She would pick up a fraction of what was said and try her best to make up the rest. If you gave her 3 pieces of info eg "go to the cupboard and get a blue pencil" she would only pick up going to the cupboard and have no idea what for.

This is supposed to be a common problem with neglected children - their receptive language is poor because they weren't babbled to as babies.

She also had very basic speech patterns when they were analysed. Poor vocabulary. Did a lot of repeating back. Would say "I don't know" or "I can't remember" instead of going to the bother of formulating an answer (different from chatting away on her own terms - she was very chatty in fact.

It also covered social communication with peers and adults. She was bossy with friends, interrupted, treated adults like friends....

So anyway she scored 2 out of 100!!! Like I say, we had no idea.

It is useful to have it in the ehc as they can have provision built in. You can also try listening therapy, available from SALTs. We did it but you do have to be careful as it can be overwhelming for an adopted child.

Thanks for that @Arran2024 thats really helpful and a lot of it rang bells with my ds. I will look into it , really appreciate you taking the time to respond! Sorry it took me a while to reply! It’s been one of those weeks!

@Arran2024could I please jump in and just ask what is listening therapy? I'm really interested in knowing more about salt stuff because I'm convinced one of my might need it but I don't really understand how to explain exactly what the problem is or what the solution might be!

Hi. Listening therapy is available on the nhs, so not some new age therapy. It was developed in the 30s by a guy called Tomatis. We actually did Tomatis therapy in a centre in Lewes, but that closed down a few years ago when the owner died. That was the creme of listening therapy but you had to attend in person and anyway, speech and language therapists developed a version you can do at home.

You wear special headphones with a bone conductor and you listen to scratchy music for an hour or so every day.

You do have to be careful though. Onebof my daughters went completely hyper on the home programme. She needed a much more cautious programme than the therapist was used to.

SALTs don't really understand early trauma so you have to be careful.

But it helped my girls so much.

That's really interesting I haven't heard of that. Thank you!

Just thought I’d update had a really good 2 hour talk through ds early history and where we are now. Once report approved the plan is a full days assessment with education psychologist , psychiatrist OT & physio looking at sensory needs, development, attachment style & various other things then likely to follow up with some DDP sessions.

I feel heard & understood it was exactly what I needed and I have hope again for the future.

im aware it’s not happened yet and it might not totally change our world but today I’m taking the win!!! 😊

hope everyone has a good weekend!!

Just updating incase anyone reading this in the future!! Had the assessment!!

The social worker definitely oversold the process!

The reality was they only met our son for 45 minutes !!

I was rather disillusioned at this point!

However, they combined this with lots of videos and info we gave through various questionnaires, a 90 min meeting with us and the same with school as well as the info from the social workers assessment and wrote a brilliantly insightful and thorough report that has really helped us understand his difficulties on a deeper level and have made sensible and doable recommendations for next steps for him and us.

if anyone considering it I would 100% recommend it’s definitely helped us and hopefully we’re just at the beginning of improving life for him.