Suprised that SALT feels that ds1 needs a speech programme

[Overrun]

The background to this was that he had glue ear for a long time and was at this piont referred for an assessment. In the meantime he has been discharged from the ENT clinic as they no longer think that he has hearing loss.
It took so long for appt with SALT to come round that I had pretty much forgotten about it. However when they did contact us, we decided that we would take the appt as although we were not worried it would be a waste to turn it down and then have to wait another year and a half if problems crop up again.
I was really suprised that she said that he mispronounces various sounds and needs a programme to help him.
I feel a bad Mum for not realising this, but also there is a small part of me that thinks, it's silly because he actually seems to speak a lot better than his peers.
Plan to co operate obviously as I will defer to professional judgement, but just suprised thats all.
Has any one else had much experience of seeing SALT's?

yes my ds(5) has been seeing a speech therapist from age 3 when the school nursery picked up on things. he seems to go along with it ok and is making great progress, but like you i'm sometimes mystified why he needs it.

do you think that this is because as parents we can understand them, but every one else can understand ds1, including his nursery. She was funny this SALT as well as she wanted him to play this game, but let him get lots of games out as well, and then when he wanted to play another one than the one she wanted to, she turned to me and said"does he always have this much trouble concentrating on things?" His concentration is actually pretty good for a three and a half year old, but if you have games all over the floor what child that age wont be itching to try them all?
Has it helped with your daughter and has she been seeing a SALT for long?

sorry you did say for how long

my sons been seeing one for a couple of years. they don't just concentrate on speech but all forms of language development (forming sentences etc) and how he interacts with others.

Hmmm I am probably miss cynical....... but...... lots of experience of (trying) to see SALTS. DS1 has very severe (unfixable- but prob helped with therapy) speech/language problems and has had next to no SALT.

What they do seem to do is provide therapy for blocks of say 6 sessions for easily "fixable" conditions. So that may be why your ds has been given this. The children I've observed receieving hands on SALT often don't appear to have much wrong, but what they do have is very easily corrected.

How old is he?

I did ask for ds2 - weho was dxed with a speech disorder but is fine now) to be kept an eye on rather than receieve actual therapy (long story) and they were happy to do that.

The way my twins are going she will probably end up seeing them as well!
Ds1 started speaking in sentences pretty early but she says it is his pronounciation that is poor.
Just hope that it doesn't turn into a too regular thing

ds2's pronounciation was way- off- when gien the dx of speech disorder he was practically incomprehensible. We used some Nuffield stuff and some Kaufman stuff at home and it all clicked really quickly.

If you have twins as well going for therapy will be hard. Does he attend nursery? Could he be seen there?

Jimjams2 that is interesting as I think they do plan to see him in the short term. He is three and half. Speaks pretty well, except they say he gets some sounds mixed up, like g and d, dhirl and goggy. What is wierd is that at home he would say dog, maybe gog (and we didn't hear that he was mixing them up), but he got quite bored with endless pictures and started speaking in a sillier and sillier voice. He mimics my 21 month old twins too, hence the goggy/doggy.
I'm sure they take this sort of thing into consdiration and I guess I will just have to see how it goes.
Sorry to hear that you didn't get the help you wanted with one of your children

JimJams: what to do with the twins is a major problem, last time my dh took an early lunch hour and came and sat with them in the car while we were seen. I guess it depends on long they are planning to see him.
The slight complicating factor about him being seen at nursery is that he is going to welsh speaking nursery. We are English speaking, I suppose that doesn't really matter, but at the moment its the holidays anyway.
I suppose I don't really want him stigmatised in any way by being seen at nursery, do you think that is silly or besides the point?

a few children in my son's school see the salt too! we have a unit in the school. my son isn't stigmatised at all for it.

they decided in the end that ds2's speech disorder was perhaps not really a disorder but mimicing ds1 (he corrected it so quickly- just under 3). I'm not convinced as ds2 was using a lot of sounds that ds1 couldn't. My parents alwasy said he just didn't realise children spoke (because of ds1) and although I'm again not convinced he did improve a lot on starting nursery so there may be something in it.

ONe reason that they were happy to leave ds2 was because by the time he saw the NHS salt the sounds he couldn't pronounce were the "later" to develop sounds like "k". Initially when assssed they were all over the place (grandad was "menya" for example!)

I just feel a bit blue about it I suppose. Mainly because ds1 has various other appts and it is always difficult with twins, so part of me just thinks god not another thing to get to
I would feel more motivated if I was worried about his speech, I suppose I am a little bit now after reading the report, but it is all pretty minor stuff.
Shouldn't worry about him being seen in nursery I guess, but it was not what I was expecting, thats whats thrown me

yes that's why I asked to delay giving ds2 hands on appointments. I wasn't concerned (having seen how he was developing) and appoiintments with ds1 in tow were impossible (hes severely autistic) so the practicalities for something I wasn't worried about were tricky iyswim.

they start early as alot of things can be corrected easier when they are little. it upset me when i read the report from them too, alot of the language used was confusing.

My dd was late to start talking and her speech is pretty indistinct. She had some input at 18 mo as she made no sound at all then, not even babble, and is due for a follow-up shortly at 2.6 yo. I suspect she will need something as others find it quite hard to understand her and she misses out loads of sounds. I understand her, but then I'm around her all the time. It freaks me out a bit because it's sometimes a bit hard to work out how her general development is. Ds was very vocal very early, and we had a running commentary as it were. Every time he learned something new he told us! Dd is more of a mystery. We had no idea she knew colours until the other day when she pointed to some bricks and said "ed, een, oo, eeyellow, urple, peenk". She never rehearses anything, or copies what you say. She'll just suddenly come out with a new set of words (or close approximations to words). It's very disconcerting. She's an odd child!

It's really useful to hear other peoples experiences as I don't know anyone in rl who sees a SALT, not that it is that uncommon I know. Although it is hard to get to see one. Our SALT has a really strong Austrailian accent, she is a locum brought in to clear the appts, even in the assessment ds1 had started to adopt the accent