So if the school says your child would benefit from speech therapy - should you take them up on it?

[Enid]

not for me, for a friend. her four year old (he is young for his year- august birthday) has been recommended to have speech therapy. After discussing it with her husband they have decided not to do it as they think he is too young and like the way he speaks.

I am of the school of thought that they should have it. Obviously its up to her in the end, I have no experience of it and I am not going to push it, but I wondered what others thought.

He'd seen a SALT Enid, had been under the care of about 5 (they don't ;last long SALTS!) but the speech therapy consisted of them turning up once every few months (or us going to them so he could ignore them and play with a sink) then trying to assess him and getting nowhere and then them leaving a few photocopied sheets.

The situation is dire really - the SALT service is so ridiculouslty short staffed, for children who are "complex" the whole thing is a joke. Luckily ds1's last NHS SALT (when he was at mainstream) was very open to meeting with his private SALT so that she could get a better understanding of him. She was stunned when she was visting in shcool and his private SALT appeared as he grinned at her, got up and went and sat on her lap and gave her a big cuddle. She kept syaing she didn't know he was even capable of that. Well of course not, she was a stranger so he woudln't even make eye contact with her, let alone do her assessments.

It is easier to get appointments if your child isn;t complex (we only waited a year for ds2!) because there are more generalist SALTS, but the service is still stretched. Crazy to turn it down. By the time he gets seen he'll either not need SALT, or it will be desperate so they may as well get referred.

Definitely take them up on it. My daughter has delayed development due to sotos syndrome but she is having speech therapy. Actually she has been seeing a speech therapist for the past 18 months or so (she has just turned 4) and the speech therapist at our last integrated pathways meeting said that she would now actively involve my daughter in speech therapy lessons. Although she is talking a lot better, she has been tested at a level of 60% of someone who has never met her before being able to understand what she is saying. It has been said that the delayed speech is part of the condition and as her low muscle tone strengthens her speech will improve but if speech therapy is going to help her improve a bit sooner then, for me and my daughter, that is just great.

depends on how the childs speech is really... at my DS school, almost half his class were recommended for speech therapy at the age of 4 -- the waiting list was quite long and I panicked thinking it would cause him long term probs and paid for a private therapist to see him.. She said all his mispronounciations were age appropriate and he did not have a problem at all and would in no way recommend he had therapy ... she said the teachers were recommending therapy without any training or reasoning...

Guess that is my experience but unless child is genuinely struggling.. give them time to develop at their own pace, I say..

I dont know. DS' nursery have suggested that he might need some speech therapy because he is a little bit hard to understand at times.
He had about 6 sessions of private speech therapy when he was around 2.I am of the opinion now that his language skills will develop naturally in time, he doesnt have any noticeable impediment like a lisp or stammer so why push it when there are kids with serious communication problems queing for therapy.

hmmm .. I think that's cruel and slightly abusive tbh .. they may well like the way he speaks as a 4 year old but if its been identified a problem I wonder if they'd like his embarrassment at still speaking that way when he's 14

Thats a bit harsh. Sounds like the school has identified it as a potential problem but he has not been professionally assessed yet.

For my own son if i noticed it becoming a real issue then I would definitely have him referred ( or take him privately)however all kids develop at there own pace,why push them to be all speak, think, behave exactly the same by a certain age.

It's true you may wait longer for an appointment for a child over five. Research shows that earlier intervention is best, so that's where some services target their resources, but not all services prioritise this way.

I'm not saying that's right, so don't shoot me down.

There's nothing more frustrating than a parent bringing an eight or nine year old child with speech sound difficulties that ought to have been addressed much sooner, for whatever reason. The fact is, these problems become much harder to solve the older the child gets (in my experience, this is 50% because the speech pattern is too well learnt and 50% because older children don't want to co-operate as much, lack motivation and can't be bribed to do the work!)

She should have him assessed. It's true that teachers are not trained to differentiate between age-appropriate speech sound substitutions and delayed or deviant ones, but they do have a rough idea of what other children are doing and this is a useful benchmark.

Health visitors, on the other hand, they refer bloody everything

I have hemmed & hawed for years wondering if DD should have speech therapy; she's now 4yo & we still struggle to understand what she is saying, sometimes. Her preschool at the mo. seems to think she's fine, & I've tended to think that she'd be (marginaly) better off without speech therapy... but if any early years/school people outright recommended speech therapy I wouldn't hesitate any more. So I think Enid's friends are being daft, too.

Are they mad?

It can take 12 months to get an appointment around here?!

In fairness to Enid's friends it sounds as if they are in denial that there may be a problem . It is one thing to have doubts yourself about your child but quite another for someone to suggest it. You become accustomed to your child's foibles and therefore don't see them in the same way as someone more detached might.

Assessment may simply suggest he is age appropriate or may make suggestions for further referral or practice at home. Either way it is a big psychological hurdle for them to overcome and the easiest way to deal with it is to hope it just goes away, which ironically it may.

Enid, do you think that they are burying their heads in the sand (or the dh specifically), and/or taking it as a critcism of their parenting skills? Could you suggest to your friend that rather than being a parenting/behavioural issue it's more akin to a health issue - ie nothing they have done or not done, just something that can be treated, like a broken arm. Just a thought.

well I spoke to her about it and she agreed to go and see the teacher with her dh. He was adamant that his ds would not have speech therapy until the last minute she said when the teacher told them that another child in the class was also being referred.

Somehow they know who this other child is (confidentiality???) and it happens to be the dd of a friend of mine - incredibly bright and clever child. Luckily, but for all the wrong reasons, this convinced her dh that perhaps speech therapy wouldn't be too insulting after all and they are going to take it.

Nope, you're not endearing these people to me

Glad for their son that they've made a sensible decision though.

OMG, Enid, is your friend's dh generally like this? Sounds like a nightmare of a dad!

Sad that the dad took that attitude but I suppose at least he went along, sceptical or not. Hope their ds makes some progress and they ultimately see the benefits.