SALT referral for 3 year old

[Hopingforbetterluck]

At nursery pick up today DS key worker came out to talk to me about the fact that she wants to refer him to SALT as she’s noticed he has a very short attention span and once he’s lost focus he tends to repeat himself.

I made an absolute fool of myself by bursting into tears. Im just so worried she’s alluding to something being wrong. I am fully aware DS has the attention span of a knat but I always just thought he was a lively excitable lad who would grow out of it. He’s a lovely, affectionate, happy kid but does lack focus. I asked if it was just his attention span she’s worried about and she said he’s got great vocabulary but once you’ve lost his attention it’s hard to get it back.

Does anyone have experience of SALT referrals for this reason? Clearly I’m glad they are being proactive and want him to get any help he needs but I’m just concerned she thinks there’s something wrong.

Anyone? I’m really worried

Honestly, a bit of early therapy will pay off long term. I work with teens that I know have speech and language needs but it is too late to do anything about it.
Accept any help you can get. It's fine. Loads have speech therapy and I wish there were more therapists available so your wait time will likely be awful. Speech relies on focus and attention initially so improving that really helps. No screens for him and lots and lots of short interractive play opportunities with you. Rhyming word games, nursery rhymes and enriching vocab.

Hi OP, do you/nursery have any other concerns or is it just the attention span? My DD is almost 3 and has a very short attention span and is also very active and lively. I think she may be autistic but she also has lots of other behaviours/traits that make me think this, along with a severe speech delay.

Maybe ring nursery tomorrow and ask to speak to the keyworker/manager/SENCO in more details about their concerns and what they are worried about. Because it may be quite a long wait to be seen by NHS SALT.

Thanks for your replies. We’re lucky enough that our nursery has a therapist that can come in one morning a week and work with him so hopefully he can get started straight away.

They didn’t say anything else about other behaviours. He didn’t used to like the singing at nursery but they’ve said he’s recently started joining in, dancing and seems to enjoy it. When he does fixate on something he tends to repeat himself quite a bit but he’s my first so it’s hard to tell as I’ve nothing to compare it to, his sister is only 7 months. I’ve been worried that he doesn’t seem to interact with the other children much and is still happy to play independently alongside them but he engages really well with adults and his pre-teen cousins.