Speech and Language Therapy.

[mommy6]

I have a meeting tomorrow morning with the speech and language therapy department.Ds2 starts next week,he will go 2 days aweek until the end of August.
I wondered if anybody can give my some ideas about what to ask tomorrow.I have spoke to afew people but they have just worried me more,by saying its a waste of time and they learn more by going to nursery.One mom said her son was shown how to do signing instead of doing speech.I'm not that worried about the signing,that not a bad thing to learn.But my heads spinning with everything,and i'm sure its not a waste of time,otherwise why offer it?
Somebody please help calm me down.

far better to risk a waste of time than your DS missing out on something that could have helped him.

what are your DS2's issues? Are they pronunciation problems or problems with language in general?

Basic questions:-
1)how long are the sessions
2)are you going to be allowed in with him, or just have to wait around outside
3)are they going to be giving you homework to do with him to follow on from the sessions
4)what sort of exercises will they be doing in the sessions.

I would take with a pinch of salt what the people have said about waste of time - as their kids may not have had the exact same group sessions scheduled as your DS anyway. am presuming these are people whose kids have had speech therapy btw! As I understand it there are different levels of groups that run according to how the kids are doing with language. I would imagine it's the kids that are struggling more would who would be using signing and/or the kids with difficulties with receptive language (their understanding of language). Signing is good for general language development - it gives kids an extra gesture to help them remember/produce a word, and signing a word should be used along with speaking it anyway.

Thank you TotalChaos.I have calmed down tonight and know it's the best thing for Ds2,and glad that the session have come through so fast.
I will write a list to take tomorrow including the ones you have said above.
Ds2 has afew problem to be honest.Pronunciation problems being just one of them,he also has very limited vocabulary.On top of that he doesn't seem to be able to communicate.At times he seems to not understand simple instructions,and has his own language.
I think i was just having a panic about it all.Its hard to know where to begin with helping him really.It is also hard to admit he really does have problems and needs alot of help.I have also starting to think it might not just be language problems.
But he is such a happy little boy,who is loved very much.

i think we have spoken before. anyway a bit of background - DS's speech didn't develop at all between 2 and 3 - at 36 months he was severely delayed according to private SALT - this was both in his expressive speech and understanding. He had quite a lot of single words, knew colours/shapes/animals, but wasn't really putting together even 2 word sentences. His understanding was at 1 word level. 16 months down the line, both his understanding and expressive are much better - he is now about a year behind, so at 3 year old level. He can put together some long sentences and answer very simple questions. He still has definite problems, but is managing very well at his mainstream nursery with very little support. He has been assessed for autism, and it is felt that he probably doesn't have autism, "just" language problems. Having language problems can have a big effect on a child's pretend play and socialising. So try not to panic, but if you are concerned about autism, try and get your DS referred to a paediatrician.

Things that helped with DS -

1. Hanen course. Unfortunately run by Surestart and not by a speech therapist, but still very useful.
2. the books that went with the Hanen course - It takes two to talk and You Make the Difference by Ayola Manolson.
3. using lots of visuals - photos/gestures etc to back up what I was saying to help him understand. eg. if you are saying you are going
4. work with private speech therapist - starting from scratch with some very basic vocabulary that DS just didn't have - asking for help, saying things like stop/go/again.
5. using PECs (it's a bit like signing, in that it's an alternative augmentation to speech, but using little picture symbols rather than hand signs).

don't be scared of going onto the special needs board for advice, lots of posters there have experience of kids with language problems

Re:Cat's point on the bubbles - they can be used to encourage all sorts of language - from getting a kid to say "bubbles" "more" or "again", when they want you to blow more, to using verbs "blow", "dip", and if the kid has those basics, to start combining into little phrases or sentences - "more bubbles", "blow bubbles", "want bubbles" etc.

oh at the point where I started looking for help with DS, his big gap was verbs. So if your DS has a reasonable number of nouns, might be time to add in some basic verbs - activity words like jump and slide might be handy - I used to encourage DS to jump on and off a chair in his room to teach him "jump" and "on" and "off".

Thank you to both of you for all the info.
The meeting went well and covered everything i needed to know.I also had chance to meet some of the other parents and children,who will be there too.
Next week on two days, Ds2 will go and 'play' for 3/4 of hour.We will be able to watch and hear them from another room.There will be 6 children,all of them boys.I'm looking forwards to seeing him play and interact,without him knowing i can see him.

Hi Mommy6, just to let you know that my DS has been going to SALT for nearly 2 years now. Not constantly thoughout that period, but in 6 week courses. It has helped him tremendously, yes most of it is playing games and asking him to hear the correct sound, but it has been fantastic.

You seem much more upbeat since your meeting and I am glad. It is difficult, but my experience of SALT has been great !