SALT

[Sami25]

SALT- is there a staff who teaches speech and language in school? Are they called SALT? What's the difference between SALT in the medical field vs SALT in the education field? Can the staff who teaches speech and language in school diagnose? Sorry for the naivety, just new to the system, my child has some speech sounds issues.

There may be a SALT from LA who visits schools or a resident one if it is a special school or ms with a specialist unit. They are qualified in the same way as those in clinical environments.

@LIZS it's a mainstream, not sure if they have a unit or not but shows that there is one staff who teaches speech and language. I feel that they wouldn't be able to diagnose and would need a SALT referral to know if it's something which can be corrected or not?

When I ran a SALT unit in a mainstream school, we had two therapists who came into school to work with the students in the unit and we followed their strategies in other interventions and via the TAs in mainstream lessons.

That was a while ago. I don’t know what support they have now. I suspect, very little.

If they are qualified they can diagnose.

It depends on qualifications, not job title. SALT typically stands for "speech and language therapist"

A mainstream school night have a trained speech and language therapist on the payroll, but this would be very unusual. Most get NHS therapists or private therapists in instead.

More often, mainstream schools could have a TA or similar who runs the speech and language programmed as modelled by the external therapists, on a day to day basis. At some schools, they might call this person "SALT TA" or similar. These people would be unable to assess, but would be able to run programmes they are familiar with.

I used to be a TA and had training for Speech and Language therapists so I could deliver their exercises/ activities but I had no qualification. A SALT in education is as qualified as a SALT in the medical field; they can diagnose. An assistant who has had some training in Speech and Language cannot diagnose. I hope that makes sense.

It is normal for SALTs to be employed by education (by a single school, by an academy trust or by the LA). Most will only be at each school for a set number of days a term, possibly once a week, unless it's a very large or very needy school. It might be worth checking if the school mean an actual SALT or a TA who delivers SALT packages.

The SALT who come into our school work for the NHS but they work with children and schools for the child's intervention.

"Speech and Language Therapist" and "Speech Therapist" are protected titles in the UK. An individual must be qualified and registered with the HCPC to use those titles. Any other title can be used without qualification or registration. So 'Speech and Language Assistant' or 'TA for Speech and Language', etc., can be used by anyone.

Just to confuse things, I have just seen that a school in our wider area (which has enhanced provision for autism, so might reasonably be expected to have Speech and Language Therapist input) offers something called SALT, which turns out to stand for Supporting and Learning Together sessions ('where parents/carers are invited into school to learn alongside their child to develop an understanding of what their child is learning in school'). Really think they could have thought of another acronym for the activity.