Speech and language help?

[1m2]

Hi
can someone explain the following to me please as I don’t see my child’s salt now for a few weeks I got sent some ratings through email but I don’t understand it at all.

TOMS severity Rating
Profile Used:
Phonological
toms severity rating
Impairment Rating
Severe (1)
Activity Rating
Severe (1)
Participation Rating
Mild (4)
Wellbeing Rating - Child
Mild (4)
Wellbeing Rating - Parent/Carer
Severe/Moderate (2.5)

Risk Matrix
Impact on the Child
Severe impact (4)
Likelihood of outcome
Total score 12.00000000

Thankyou!

Bump

Could do with a bit more info,
But I'd assume TOMs to be Therapy Outcome Measures.
If my assumption is right then in a nutshell your child has a sound system (phonological) delay or disorder.
The 'likelihood of outcome' could mean anything really, it depends on the context, but I'd just say don't worry about it, in some trusts scores are used for evidence based practice with measurable improvements, or if a score goes in the 'wrong' direction it's for the therapist to reconsider the therapeutic management and give it a tweak.

Phonological delay and disorders (that exist alone) are normally easy to treat (even alongside other developmental delays or disorders, phonological difficulties generally responds well to therapy). You just need an intensive therapy program (unlikely to be intensive in the NHS, but ask for home practice and do 10 mins twice a day, everyday between each therapy appointment).

When I worked overseas therapy was everyday for six weeks, parents / caregivers were expected to make sure therapy was carried out on non-therapy days the results were impressive, but you could potentially emulate it by lots of home practice, I know it can be hard without having someone in the background to keep the nagging motivating going!

@1flewoverthecuckoosnest Thank you for your reply!
just couldn’t find much online about it and it just all sounded scary.
my child is 5 has salt every week with the therapist, does her target work in school and at home we do things to do with speech everyday. She can speak it’s just certain sounds she cannot produce or confuses sounds with other sounds, or misses starting or ending off words etc. She’s been having salt for 2 years and on paper still no improvement, she is currently under going adhd which the therapist believes plays a big role in where she is atm.

That language comes from the World Health Organisation ICF (International Classification Framework). If you Google it, it mentions it is a model for disability. Don't let that freak you out! It's a useful model for deciding how severe a child's needs are and can sometimes be used to prioritise who to see.

Impairment is the actual issue e.g. X can't sustain her breath long enough to make an s sound
Activity is the task e.g. X can't use s in words
Participation is within her everyday environment e.g. can her friends understand her? Can she ask for what she wants?
Wellbeing is how she feels about it

So essentially the report is saying her speech needs are quite severe (maybe because she is not making very quick progress or maybe because the errors are having a big impact on the clarity of her talking). However it is not impacting her too much in terms of her day to day life and she isn't too bothered by it.

Presumably they then have a matrix for an overall level of concern, and the 2 'severe' scores lead to a high severity overall. Try not to panic too much. Sometimes these things are scored towards the severe end to ensure the child continues to receive the input they need.

@BendingSpoons
thankyou for explaining that