Speech therapy entitlement

[Lollipopday]

Hi, my six year old needs speech therapy due to hearing issues. He’s had grommets fitted but still needs help with speaking. He’s on the SEN list at school and is having speech therapy. I was told today that it’s just one 30 minute session per month which doesn’t feel like it will help too much. Does that seem right to others in similar situations? Thanks

Generally the SALT gives specialist input and then the class staff are intended to carry on the work throughout the intervening periods.

It depends what it says on his intervention plan that should’ve been written by the speech therapist and then left for school to do. As he is on the SEN register he should have an IEP (your school may call them something else) and that should detail what they are doing in the format of ADPR (Assess Plan Do Review).

My experience is that they will meet up with your child and then give the parents activities to do on a mostly daily occurrence and then you will meet them again to check progress and so on

What do you mean by ‘entitlement’. It goes on individual need as judged by the SaLT.

Therapy is just part of the support. School staff & parents will be expected to implement strategies the rest of the time.

Usually they will give the parents the instructions/speech practices to do at home with the child.

School staff will be given guidance on how to implement and encourage the strategies being used. This should also be provided to you as parents. The SALT is a wonderful resource, but not a magic bullet. Everyone needs to be in the game, so to speak...

With ds in a similar situation, we had an assessment with a SALT who then set up a programme which was delivered in weekly sessions with a Speech & Language Assistant (who was brilliant). She was in regular contact with the SALT to discuss progress.

The sessions were around half an hour long, but we were given exercises to do at home and the assistant was always chipping in to me during sessions to point things out and talk about things we could do day to day to reinforce the sessions.

Once a month does feel a bit short, but assuming that you're given work to do in the meantime, I would say that the bulk of the progress was via the homework and building the techniques into our everyday life rather than during the sessions (although these were really motivating for ds because he really clicked with the assistant and the games were fun).

The word ‘entitlement’ probably gave the wrong impression. I haven’t been given any work to do with him at home and no contact from the SALT. Anyway, thanks for the help. I’ll contact the school.

Yes, that's a good idea. I think it's really important that you know what they're working on so you can reinforce at home and check for progress yourself.

If possible, you can pay for weekly SALT sessions that happen in school (normal state primary). That's what we do for my 6yo DS as he has trouble with certain consonant blends but no hearing issues. He wouldn't be considered a priority as far as waiting lists are concerned.

Absolutely. I think it came across that I expect the school to do all of the work which couldn’t be further from the truth! Really appreciate the help ditalini.

To give you an idea of what ds was doing (although his issues might not be the same as your ds's), he had trouble with specific consonant sounds (apologies if my terminology is dodgy), so for e.g. he would say "goat" but it would sound like "doat", or "coat" but it would sound like "toat"

The therapy used the concept of "minimal pairs" - words that are the same except for the sound you're trying to reinforce, e.g. "cop" / "top"

They used pictures with the word and games so that they could check that a) ds could distinguish between the two sounds (he mostly could, but this got better with practice) and b) he could hear and correct himself when he made the wrong sound.

It was also important for me to see this because actually he was unclear with quite a lot of sounds that I hadn't even noticed. I was taught techniques for checking him when he said something "wrong", e.g. "oh sorry ds I didn't quite catch that, did you say "cop" or "top"?"

There's loads of stuff about minimal pair therapy online, so if it is this that they're doing you should be able to reinforce with games that you can play at home.

That's about right, however how it works with DD she has a session once a week for 3-4 weeks, then won't have any for another 3-4 months. We are given activities and things to practice on within those 3-4 months. It has been like this since the start of this year. It generally works.

Hello
The techniques that are used will vary. Different speech therapists have different areas of professional interests and experience levels which will influence their work approach. Bear that in mind. Check his intervention plan to see what it says. Depending on the issue in question, they may use games and exercises as part of his treatment plan.

Current provision is terrible and I would def recommend getting private speech therapy if you can afford it

It is fairly typical provision, very rarely enough and many areas provide far less.

I've just successfully obtained weekly sessions for my 6 year old through her ehcp

It’s a minefield. Mine had 6x30
Sessions (1 a week for 6 weeks) then nothing for 6 months and then the day again. Then after a massive shit storm and me creating Merry hell he went to an SRB unit for a year and a term- 4 days a week there and 1 day in normal primary. On the 4 days he had 1-2-1 x2 30 mins sessions. He was supposed to be there for a year and a term (maximum allowed) but 7 months of that was lockdown and nothing - not one session of salt by zoom or anything - absolutely fuck all. So I brought the books and learnt to teach him and we did it every day and still do. He was discharged after a post Covid return after 3 months as ‘he has made so much progress compared to the others who have regressed ‘ no shit Sherlock - then awarded a full EHCP. Now has daily phonics 1-2-1 with ta, extra support and 1 hour a week with salt - it’s working but I continue to do it with him daily and will do - he does a minimum of 2 hours average extra at home - but we are catching up - in January 2 years behind - now we are 4 months behind (!)