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.

Is sing and sign Makaton or BSL?

I like Dave Benson Philips as his are Makaton.

Makaton, which is an augmentativ system (ie one talks normally but signs certain key words to emphasise language.)
BSL is a language in its own right, much like Spanish or Dutch or nay other with huge vocab. and complex grammar. It generally takes the place of spoken language.

Makaton involves learning not too many signs. If you want to use BSL properly you would have to masters thousands of signs.

DS was already verbal when PECs was introduced (single words, phrases and very odd little sentence of the "mummy throw ball/brush hair" variety - but PECs really worked wonders at getting DS to get the hang of structuring a sentence - went from months of garbled "havva more juice" to "I +want +more +juice" within a week of starting PECs. Which has springboarded onto longer spontaneous sentences.

Moondog I am aware of the difference between BSL and Makaton, being a fluent Makaton signer myself. Fairly shortly I will be qualified to teach others Makaton too.

I am not familiar with Sing and Sign, we always promote the DBP ones to parents/groups that's all. If there are more/better resources out there I am willing to promote others!

Well done to you Marmaduke!
We needs lots more Makaton trainers.
Primary reason S&S not Makaton is to do with control over content. As you know,Makaton keep a very tight grip over their product.

For similar reasons, in my signing business we opted not to talk about using Makaton as we wanted artistic freedom to develop the product and direction as we wanted to.

BT do a free dvd re speech, never seen it but have seen recommendations.

Phonic sounds are also another thing I have read as being able to help, learning sounds rather than words and building on that.

I'm also a SLT.

If she is newly qualified she may well be finding it hard/ overwhelming to cope with her caseload duties but none of this is important to you. You need to have commitments met.

I would speak to her manager outlining your concerns. He manager will find out why she isn't following things up as promised.

I know that 'consolidation periods' are important but carry over work is a must in order for these to be a success (i.e. close liaison with nursery).

However, I know you may be angry with the situation but private SLT's (I'm not one of them) charge what they do as over heads are huge. Assessments cost in excess of £150-300 (for each and if you go private you need a range of these) plus resourses (which you are often not allowed to photocopy), planning time, note writing e.t.c. That £50 probably pays 2 hours (including planning etc) rather than the hour of therapy you see. All the SLT's I know are very committed to their clients and are certainly not in it for the money...BELIEVE ME!!!

I've had the free BT DVD - it's OK but a bit basic, I don't think will be vastly helpful to the OP, as she's in the system and the DD has a very specific speech production problem.

mamma - in my limited experience of private SALT, I agree - that £50/hour includes the prep time, and that it's not a wholly money making exercise. Also my private SALT doesn't charge travel time, and doesn't clock watch - i.e. a 1 hour session may be 1 hour 20 etc without paying extra. Given that a real crap counsellor was charging £35/h and a clin psych was charging £50/h 5 years ago, I don't see the private SALT fees as being out of the ordinary.

another advantage of private SALT is having an unbiased view (mine works in a neighbouring LEA, not my LEA) wrt to support needed at school etc.

oh and moving back to the OP - start keeping a note of all contact/attempted contact with the SALT - so if you do end up making a complaint you have specific examples to refer to.

yes TC also registration to HPC and RCSLT costs ++.

I know in our service any parent speaking directly to manager in first instance really gets a situation sorted out.

good luck OP.

also, verbal dyspraxia...often very much diagnosed, new research indicates that children with speech disorder (i.e. development of sp not following 'normal' lines)may be the difficulty. Still needs some intensive input- esp given links between speech sound diffs and early literacy learning.

Very sorry for hijack BUTt Monndog please could I just ask whether my DD (2 years) who has been seeing a SALT regularly (mainly for Makaton) will still need to see her SALT now we have finally got a diagnosis of hearing impairment? She is being fitted for a hearing aid and I wondered if that would mean no more SALT? I love her SALT - she is ace and totally committed (despite being unfeasibly young!!). Really hope you get some progress MLL.

It's hard to say Sparklt. Depends on salts avaialable,measure of impairment, service provision, all sorts of stuff. I would assume most kids with HI get continued support from a salt or specialist teacher.They do here anyway.

Sparkletastic, my Ds has a hearing impairement and continues to see his salt weekly, with the breaks being only for her holidays, courses etc. He does also have a problem with his palate which causes a massive problem for him. He also sees a teacher from hearing services.

I would echo moondog about writing and complaining. We had to do this as the previous salt left her post beginning 07 and the new one wasn't starting untill October 07, and no provision was made for the children. My main complaint was that again there was no system in place to deal with the children with severe problems in the interim.

Anyway after a couple of letters to manager of salt, copied in to the cheif exec and actually one to our local MP, we are very happy at the level of support he recieves. VERY ANNOYING AND VERY WRONG however that it is such a fight!!

I know what I said about private speech therapists charges was prububly un justified and when you add everything up it probubly is about right. I'm just annoyed that we can't afford it.
Could either of you lovely speech therapists tell me wether it would actually be worth lucy learning some makaton. Her vocab is huge. She understands everything and puts together hugh sentences and chats away with the right rythem and everything but the words are very distorted and she says them differently each time. I just don't know wether learning macaton would help her as she understands so much, but people don't understand her. With makaton no one uses it at the nursery or at school so I think it might be a waste of time as people still won't understand her. It won't help her speech sounds and It would probubly draw attention to her and set her appart from the other children who will see her as being different.
Please correct me if I'm wrong as I know she would enjoy signing as she uses her hands loads when talking. She uses different gestures and facial expressions and anything she can to back up what she's saying.

Also if anyone has any ideas how to limit her frustration please let me know. It is also very draining for me having to constantly be raelly tuned in and trying so hard to understand everything she says. If you haven't fully understood, she knows. She will repeat it again and again getting more and more stressed. I ask her to show me but often she can't. This leads to major melt downs, crying screaming and biting har teeth together really hard and going red in the face. It is awful to watch.

Just wanted to say I sympathise. My DS has a SALT who was very young and inexperienced too. In fact, she came to completely different conclusions to everybody else he had seen. Psychs, paeds, teachers, school nurse and me all thought his vocab was really good and his problem was just a mechanical difficulty with speaking(verbal dyspraxia again) and she basically said the opposite.

I wrote to the SALT manager and complained as I was watching her administer the tests and she wasn't allowing him time to answer and as a result, her report seem to misunderstand the nature of his problem completely.

The manager phoned me and we had a long chat, which helped me understand what they were doing. Interestingly when the SALT next did the tests she came to the same conclusions as everybody else and was very keen to include me - she knew I was watching her like a hawk. Sadly, it meant that he lost several months doing exercises that were unnecessary, waiting for her next school visit to give him the next stage of his programme.

Hopefully a letter of complaint would do the same for you and get things going. Personally I wouldn't escalate to anybody else until you have given the SALT manager to do her job and manage but would have no hesitation in escalating if that failed.

Can you get the nursery to speak to her and ask for advice on how to help your DD instead of waiting for her to phone them? (sorry if somebody has already suggested that).

Niecie- thanks. I do wonder if she is a bit out of her depth with Lucy. At first she said that she would have to check with a coleague to see what she should do with her.
I have thought about getting the nursery to phone the SALT but I've tried many times to phone her myself but can NEVER get through. She only works 2 days a week at the surgery and is always out of the office. It's a nightmare.

Hi, I'm not a speech therapist but our little boy did brilliantly with makaton. I attended a course and nursery have learnt it. IME makaton does help their spoken language as he seems to be able to focus more when signing iyswim. Our SALT has gone into school last week and delivered makaton training to all teaching staff and support staff, (mainstream school)ready for when he starts in September.

He also understands everything, is very vocal but cannot make the sounds to enable his speech to be intelligable. Makaton has saved us lots of temper tantrums.

MLL, the SENCo at nursery should be able to help with continuing the programme set by the SALT, and refer to the area SENCo if necessary. We found our's fantastic and she liased with the SALT about the best way to continue the therapy away from clinic.

Also, when we eventually got to see our new SALT I couldn't believe the difference in her knowledge and understanding of his difficulties. She is brilliant and has made great progress with him whereas the old one was frankly hopeless with his particular syndrome. (sorry for long message, nothing like a SALT rant to get me chatting!!!)

Caz, great story and good to know you are getting appropriate support.

Mummy,log all your attempts to call. Ask them to get her to ring you back. If she doesn't, start every convo with 'I am calling for the 6th/7th/8th time in 4/5/6/7 days.'

That might shame 'em into action.

cazcaz- Thanks a lot, don't apologize. I'm really greatful for anyone trying to help. It is fantastic the help your son is getting from your SALT. Can we swap ?? I don't know how the other children would accept Lucy signing. I don't want to make her stand out as being different. It is a very small school and none of the children have any special needs.

Oh and the school is also private so this complicates things. I want her to stay as she is really happy there and the staff and girls are lovely with her. I don't want them to think that this might be the wrong school for her. I think there would be more chance of teasing and her getting overlooked in a big state school. But does anyone know wether The SALT would continue to see her at the private school because I've heard that they don't and you'de have to have a private SALT. That is just not an option for us at all. If that was the case then she would have to leave the school which would be sad. She dosn't like change and it takes her a long time to make friends. She also gets on better in small classes.

MLL - probably not swap but very happy to share!

I really don't know about the private school and SALT but hope you get some answers soon.

I would think that it is probably okay now to ask for her to be assesed by another therapist who is more familiar with her type of problem. Even if they put in place a program for your current therapist to deliver it's a start.

You have my total sympathy as I understand how heartbreaking it is watching your child struggle to be understood, particularly when you feel the help isn't good enough. Keep banging your head against that brick wall sooner or later you'll knock it down! Good Luck.

Aaww thanks. xx I will definatly be having words on wednesday, the SALT won't know what's hit her.

She usually likes to see Lucy then move us on asap. This time she WILL listen to what I have to say, even if it means me locking the door and throwing the key out of the window.