To expect our SALT to do her job and help our daughter ??

[mummyloveslucy]

My 3.5 year old daughter is having speech therapy at the moment. She is ment to have it once a week but is often given long breaks of up to 2 months for it to "sink in". Then recently the SALT has been saying I can't fit her in next week etc. I keep asking her to talk to the nursery to give them some advice as to how to help her. She say's "I'll ring them today" but she dosn't. It's driving me mad! She just seems sooo laid back. She is newly qualified so I would have thought she'd have a bit more get up and go.
Anyway, I'd love her to have private speech therapy but we just can't afford it. It is extreemly expensive. I've even looked in to becoming a speech therapist in order to help her and other children and famillies in the same position as us. I was amazed to find out that they don't earn all that much. When they charge a minimum of £50 an hour for private therapy. I think it is wrong that they should profit so much from a childs misfortune. It makes it impossible for some families to get the help for their children. Anyway I feel that she needs a proper diagnosis in order for me to get her more help. The SALT has mentioned verbal dyspraxia and after loads of research I have no doubt that is what she has. If I can't get her to make a simple phone call, how can I get her to make a diagnosis? My daughter is making very little progress without the therapy and is becoming increasingly frustrated. The nursery are doing all they can to help, one to ones every day etc. We are of corse doing all we can but just feel soo let down by the speech therapist. Does anyone know how I could get more help for our little girl, or how to "wake up her SALT" ??
Thanks.

My DS had speech problems. It wasn't taken seriously and by the time he was 3 still no therapy.

We were so worried about him, and ended up hiring someone privately for £50 a hour until he got some SALT.

He is nearly 8 now and still has a speech problem, and have been told it's verbal dyspraxia.

All you can do is keep pushing / asking for help.

I'm a salt.
Very lax of her.
Pin her down on a date to ring. If she deosn't send a letter of complaint to her boss and cc it to Chief Exec. That will get them shifting.
Guaranteed.

It's bad though isn't it? Is he getting the help he needs now he's at school? how did they diognose him?
I feel as if I'm banging my head against a brick wall with our SALT. I might take on a second job to pay for private therapy for her at this rate as she's missing these vital early years.

SALTs are in short supply unfortunately. Also a lot of things that parents perceive to be problems aren't issues at all.I reckon 80% of kids seeing a salt in a community clinic don't need to be there but are referred by well meaning but essentially clueless HVs.

Doesn't excuse this one's laziness and unprofessionla attitude though.

I would do a Moondog suggests re letter,I think she could at least contact the nursery.

Unfortunately,though,I do think the SALT services are stretched to the limits.DD has very severe delays and is practically non verbal,probs with both expression and reception to speech and hypotonic,and sees a SALT every 2-3 months.Currently waiting to see a SALT specialising in physical disabilities to see if stuff like a pictureboard/symbols would be more appropriate than the rudimentary Makaton signs we started off with learning.It is an AWFUL lot of waiting though.Sadly.

Hope you get something sorted.x

Yes he is getting lot's of help at achool.

Luckily he was statemented, so they have extra funding for assistants in school.

Once he got to age 4 and they could see how little he was speaking, things did get better with the SALT. Then he was having therapy once a week until he started school.

And the first thing you lot need to do is contact your local Parent partnership/SNAP (special needs advisory project) office. All education depts. have one which is there to help parents through the maze. Go and see them and gen. up on your rights. Lone voices moaning to friends are not heard.Official complaints made through the right channels are and will go some way to persuading powers that be that we need more salts.

Thanks moondog That would make it rather tense at the therapy sessions though.
She absolutly loves music and finds it really usefull for expressing herself. She gets lost in it. She has great rythum and can remember whole songs all though the words are extreemly distorted. I wondered wether there is a way of helping her speech through music ?

I'm not going to moan about dd's SALT,she is actually very good and makes good suggestions,it is sadly the system that is the problem,the fact there is a HUGE caseload for her.As an aside I know for a fact our local (quite large) trust only had 1 full time and 1 pt SALT for adults based in the hospital serving thousands!!Its criminal!!

That's the problem I know.
Still, I owuld suggest you take in a dieary and say firmly but politely 'And by when will you be phoning the nursery?' with your pen poised over an open page. That will let her know you are on the ball and not to be messed with.

I'm a huge advocate of music therapy which is wonderful for promoting early communiation skills. Often not available on NHS unfortunately but really worth looking into.

Mummyloveslucy, sorry to hijack...

Moondog, I think you're probably right re a lot of children who receive speech therapy are very minor cases, therefore denying services to the people who really need it. However, in your experience, do you find those children just grow out of whatever problems they have, or should it be down to parents at home providing assistance? Genuine question, I remember seeing something you mentioned on this before. Should HVs be suggesting something more constructive? Should parents of children with those minor problems be doing something else? I'm all for freeing up SALTs time for those who really need support.

As i said, if you want to sound off here, great but make sure you sound off to those that matter. Nothing Health Trusts hate more than complaints (which all get logged) so get them flooding in to the Chief Exec. and salt manager!

Yes moon dog, I know there are 18 month olds having speech therapy at the clinic. I can tell that Lucy has a specific problem as the amount of words she knows is great. She says very long sentences and chats away and remembers songs etc, but no one can understand what she's saying. It's frustrating for me too. She tries soo hard but when I can't understand her she gets more frustrated and it makes me feel totally useless.
Ever since she was a baby I've been constanyly chating to her singing and saying nursery rhymes. She was slow to sit up, walk etc and is always biting her longue accidently while eating.

MLL I am unsure of your dds age but I have recently started taking dd to a "Sing and sign" class.It is aimed at babies really (dd is 2.6 but assessed a intellectually around the 18 month stage by neuro paed)but combines simple makaton with songs and rhymes and the children get to "play" instruments (dd is VERY entusiastic with her shaker!!)I think it is a countrywide franchise type thing.Will try to post the web address.It may be a bit young for her ,of course.DD loves it.Cost £4.50 per session for ten weeks.

I tihnk parents should and could do more but obviously need guidance. A great idea would be to direct parents with minor issues to drop in salt clinics where they can be seen on the spot and if necessary discharged and parents directed perhaps to a tailor made website with lots of downloadable and easy to use resources. Those that are motivated to hel pwill and those that aren't won't!

Trouble is,once a referral is made as it stands, it goes through unwieldy bureaucrati procedure which costs time nad money but appt. has to be honoured even if problem is tiny.

We need to spend time nad energy on educating HVs on appropriate referrals (I work on a Leanring Disability team and we offer detialed appropriate referral training to all student nurses specialising in LD which has led to a dramatic fall in ridiculous referrals we got in the past.)

The current obsession is with cutting waiting lists to set targets so we have managers breathing down our neck and all hands on deck to not breach targets. It pisses me off no end to know that while a large pool of salts on my team are concentrating solely on reducing waiting times (for the kids of whom 80% have no real problems) I am squeezed and stretched beyond the point of breaking. As an example I have 1 day a week to deal with 20 children in two different schools, all of whom have complex needs. My day with them has to include the 3 hour drive it takes to get there and back.

Utter madness.

Nothing wrong per se with seeing children of 18 mths. They will not have speech problems, rather more serious communication problems. I have worked with children as young as 5 mths!

Sing & Sign is a terrifc strategy for all kids, especially those with comm. needs. heaps o research to show it promotes communication skills. The 'Sing & Sign' frnachise has a website on which they sell excellent dvds too.

I have a private sing/sign company I run with a music therapist and a musician. I have to take holiday from my day job to run it and we are run off our feet!

It is www dot sing (in bold)and sign(in bold) dot com.

I would link but am total link numpty and technological ignoramus.Or just type sing and sign into google and hey presto

We have been doing "music sessions" at home. She has a box of instruments and we put on the disney CD or somthing and we sing and dance and play our instruments to the music. She LOVES it. (So does mummy seecretly!) She is always making up her own tunes and tapping out tunes on different objects. When ever she sees somthing new her first response is, how can I make a tune with this.

Here is link to S&S

Mummy, what you are doing is great. Just the sort of thing I would be recommending. Seriously, by the S&S dvds.Your child will love them (I have no financial interest in the company btw.I am memrely happy to endorse a good resource.)

It does annoy me that I tried to get her some help at 2 years but they said just see how she goes.(fair enough I thought) then at 2.5 the HV said it's best to wait untill she's 3. When I finnally spoke to the SALT, she was really angry that we hadn't been refered sooner and that she was going to have a meeting with the HV's.

The lesson there is to insist on a referral if you want one. Also, a lot of salt depts. let you self refer. HVs know precisely EFF ALL about language and comm. problems. Remember that. Same goes for GPs and actually, most paediatricians too.

Thanks moondog, you have been a great help. I wish you were our Speech therapist. I will definatly try the sing and sign DVD's I'm sure she'll love them. I will follow your advice and hopefully get things moving. She is trying soo hard bless her. I'm determined she's not going to be let down. (mummy on a mission)

I ?third the recommendation for sing and sign dvds - even though we went down the PECs route rather than sign route with DS, they are still very nice dvds, very well done, with useful material.

PECS and signing.
Both brill. strategies for kids struggling to talk.

Good luck MLL.

I also adore the Something Special programmes with Saint Justin Fletcher MBE

They are good re signing.The DVDs are shockingly expensive though and my mission to find them cheap on Ebay keeps failing