In wanting to just say 'fuck it!'

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Hello! Excuse the rubbish name, after lurking for months I finally decided to Join and then every single name I picked was used.. So in frustration/sarcasm I put in this one and it accepted it! (Not the best start!)

Anyway.. My son has autism and ADHD, we have fought for bloody years to get support and mostly we keep out heads above water.. I have a long standing argument with speech and language about whether or not they offer a reasonable (or adequate) level of support.. In the end I used savings and went private for an assessment.

As it turned out the private and the nhs therapist assessed my son within a 2 week period (nhs first if that matters).. I then receive their reports on the same day.

The private therapist details lots and lots of tests where my son came extremely low.. (Like 2% of the population low) and stated in her opinion he had a severe issue with his receptive language.

The nhs therapist went on about how wonderful it all is and has bloody discharged him!!!

For some background he had met neither of these therapists before and so I now have truly no idea.. Either the private therapist is ripping me off or the nhs therapist is trying to lower her caseload!

So would I be unreasonable to just say 'sod it, I've had enough' and let someone else deal with it? Absolutely sick of fighting!!!

Sorry, you sound so despairing! Maybe you could look for your natural allies, like DS's school/nursery, which could do with the extra support a diagnosis would bring?

And, although drastic, you could try moving house, to see whether another borough/distruct would be more pro-active?

How old is he?

Who else will deal with it if you don't?

Renter, we have a diagnosis - it's more a case of judging what support he needs.. If I listen to nhs he doesn't need any more support and is coping.. If I listen to the private therapist he's desperately NOT coping and is struggling far more than is easily identifiable.

School have been very supportive.. But with this their hands are tied, they agree he needs more support but can't challenge the nhs therapists opinion as she's allegedly the expert

Caca, no one would pick it up if I dropped it.. But that's the question isn't it? We have the diagnosis, we have the support in school.. But he's still unhappy.. So either I now fight the nhs assessment, or I pay for the private therapy.. Or I acknowledged that maybe we are as far support wise as we are going to get..

Oh and he's 8 :) just going into his first year of juniors in September!

personally I would fight the nhs and pay for private therapy. If you get a second independent assessment would that hold more weight with the nhs?

What's your gut instinct about support? Is it adequate? Does he need more? I would base my actions on my instinct. School can very definitely argue with SALT in my experience. It sounds like a difficult situation. If your child is not happy maybe they do need more support. But I know what you mean about not always feeling up to fighting.

Talk to school about going down statement route. You can apply yourself if needs be. Fight nhs SALT and get private help in meantime. Psyche yourself up for a long battle.

maybe get a second NHS opinion? or a second private opinion just to see which changes. If neither changes then I'd say go with your gut, if you think he needs worked with, go for private.

look i think u need to ask for a second opinion. My gorgeous boy is currently going through the diagnostic process. we have been told to treat him as a child with ASD. So initially he was refered to SALT. we were told the wait was 4 to 6 months and as I am in impatient person We paid for a private assessment which told us what we knew that he had severe speech delay and little language understanding. she provided us with an 11 page detailed report and suggested weekly SALT. we decided to go with that as we felt it would be daft to wait 6 months when we were in a fortunate position to b avle to help him. after 5 months he is assessed by the NHS therapist it took her 30 mins. she said was banging on about how lovely he is and doesnt he have great eye contact. I pointed out that at 2 yrs and 4 months he only has 4 words. she hmmmed and ha'ed and said she would speak to the team and be in touch. fast forward 4 weeks and i get a letter from nhs SALt. included is a report......2 paragraphs long. it said he was a charming boy good eye contact and limited vocabulary. no mention of his sensory issues regarding his mouth or any understanding issues etc. she offered us a 5 week course of visual stimulus workshops which we r attending now. we have had 4 and have 1 to go. they have been useless. she spends half the time pussy footing around. she has no connection with my wee man at all so he has no desire to work for her. Its a joke.

Our origional plan was to keep the private speech therapy (weekly hr long sessions in our home) going until the NHS therapy started, however its been so crap we are keeping the private lessons going as with these sessions and the homework she gives us the improvement in my DS is massive.

so my advice would be , from experience, Go private if u can the private and nhs speech therapists can work together for the best results xxx

Can you speak to pals or any autism charity (not sure who is out there but there must be one - like there is for example for stroke survivors - my mums friend was referred to them when she had a bad stroke) - they may know the best path forward?

Hello!

My son is 9, diagnosed Asperger's & significant speech disorder at just turned 6.
The speech disorder diagnosis was made by a specialist NHS SALT.
The regular NHS SALT that he saw somewhat sporadically (from age 4) said he did not have a speech disorder.
I also paid for a private SALT assessment (about a year before diagnosis) where I was told he had a speech disorder.

My son's regular NHS SALT was very good with him, suspect you will know what I mean when I say he was not always amenable... I never mentioned to her the private assessment, never discussed with her after diagnosis that she had failed to identify his speech disorder (she could read it in the report).

Fuck it!
Pick your battles & other shit cliches.

If I were you I would look to get a 2nd opinion on the NHS.

Special needs children board on here is great.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs

You'll be back on the case tomorrow!

Thanks guys, just a bit of an update - I've basically set the private therapist against the Nhs one and decided to let them battle it out! I've (fairly IMO) sent a copy of each report to the other party and requested a meeting to discuss the findings!

If I was pushing my luck I would try and get his psych to attend but just getting the guy to return a phone call is akin to winning the lottery!

I will bear in mind re: the special needs forum.. If I'm honest I tend to avoid them as a rule.. I've checked out a few autism mums forums back in the early days of diagnosis and found them terribly depressing - COMPLETLEY understandably at times but it felt a bit misery loves company and almost got to the point of competitive parenting.. Only it was whose child was worse off!.. [Hmm] Anyway I digress..

Thanks for the support ladies!