To carry ds, nearly five, into the SALT office?

[emkana]

if I do, he settles immediately settles happily into the session, very cooperative. If I don't, he has a meltdown and the session is over before it begins. SALT makes me feel like in should refuse to carry him, which I did last time with the above result. Am now thinking about the next time, what should I do? I'm quite happy to carry him if it means he s settled.

carry him in, it hard enough getting a child to do the assessments for salts ( my son took 4 appoinment to complete a 45 minutes assessment)

what harm is it doing

Your child, you know what works. The purpose of the visit is surely to help him?
Why though, does he have a meltdown if he walks in? Will it get easier once he's been a few times?

I don't know what it's like in your area, but where I live you get a six week session of speech therapy, and then go back on the waiting list. Wasting a session because a child is upset seems very silly to me. If your child is happier being carried in I think the speech therapist should accept that.

I think she thinks that a large amount of his problems are caused by me babying him too much.

Yes jeee same here.

None of their business surely.

"Babying" a child cannot have an effect on their speech. It just can't.

You tel them where to shove it. How dare they tell you not to carry your son!?

She also sometimes tries to catch ds out with questions to see if he sleeps in his own bed.

yanbu

She's a SaLT - not a play therapist for goodness sake. If carrying your son in for his session works then go ahead and do it. You know your child best, you know what works. And so what if he doesn't always sleep in his own bed - what's that got to do with his speech?

Yanbu surely the most important thing is how he does when he gets there. Is ASD being queried? IME if it is they always initially look to the parenting first. I got told to restrict dd's (ASD) use of dummy if I wanted her to speak. SALT then blustered when I informed her she had never had one so I'd have a job

well if a five year old not sleeping in their own bed is a crucial parenting test we'd fail that here (and I know of many other parents who wouldtoo but will only admit it if you crack first!)

"Babying" a child cannot have an effect on their speech. It just can't.

It can sometimes IME but definitely not through carrying a child into a SALT session.

YANBU. I've had similar issues where the SALT obviously was trying to find a parenting fault to fix the issue. In my case, my son's uncle had the exact same issue as a child and had speech therapy but they always seem ignore that in favour of questioning parenting issues. I've found it very disheartening, like the focus was to blame us rather than focusing on his language usage.

What on earh has where he sleps got to do with anything? why is he going there if you dont mind me asking?

How ridiculous.

The focus should be on improving his SAL not whether or not he walks into a session.

YANBU in my opinion. As long as you don't carry him everywhere and do everything for him then I can't see the harm in carrying him into a speech therapy session that he is a bit unsure of.

I once saw some sort of programme about teachers and they spoke to some supposedly 'outstanding' headteachers. One woman was followed as she walked through her playground before school, and she told any parent carrying a child to put them down, in quite an aggressive manner I though - "Put him down, he's got legs!" Some were children who were not in uniform and who were clearly there to drop off an older sibling. If I had been a mother there I would have either ignored her and quietly refused, or answered her back and said something like, "excuse me but if I want to give my child a cuddle and hold him then I will."

Give SALT the crux of the matter.. You don't want to waste the sessions you have with her by your son not being carried in and having a meltdown.
End of.

If she is willing and has the resources to keep having sessions until he doesn't meltdown and she can work with you, then your happy to do so.

She will go for the former, SALT resources are like hens teeth and they are under a great deal of pressure and have huge work loads.

Feel better about it now!

I had to do this.
Now DS2 has a wheelchair (turns out the walking was hurting him and he couldn't tell us makes life soo much easier.

We're going to the wheelchair clinic on Thursday.

Oh definitely yanbu, I've done all sorts to help ds. Once he had some cranial oesteopathy while asleep in my car outside the clinic! I was so grateful to the lovely lady who put herself out to help us.

There are enough stresses around attending medical appointments as it is, you do exactly what you need to so that the session is most useful for your ds. If the carrying is a persistent issue, address that separately with your paed.

carry him. definitely.

not up to SALT to try to dx anythign, or suggest anything.

SALT is there to, err, do SALT with your ds.

you (and he!) need the sessions to be productive.

I still occasionally have ot carry my dd1 somewhere if she is unsure - we will be waiting hapily in the waiting room (or queue, or wherever), then when it is time for somethign to happen, she turns and wants to be lifted - and she is nearly 7, nad big too.

I do try to pop her back down, but if doing so woudl mean the waste of a session, i owuld not do it (unless it was a point worth making - ie SALT saying no real issues with situaitonal comprehension, and you wanted to show her that your ds could not cope - but you have already done that!)

ignore questions about where he sleeps too - not her remit.

I really must grow thicker skin, it's so easy to doubt yourself.