Referred to SALT

[OxfordshireMumOf2]

Had my DS first parents evening last night, he 'failed' the initial reception assessment and teacher has suggested a referral to the speech and language team. I was aware he was behind from nursery, but teacher said his results show he has 'severe' language and communication delay which has shocked me. DS struggles pronouncing some words and letters but is pretty understandable the majority of the time. Just want some positive out comes really? Has anyone had experience of speech therapy in schools, did your LO catch up?

My daughter is 7 now and has just been discharged from SALT.

She had maybe 5 words at 3 yrs old, didn't call me mummy until then with a lot of babbling. I hoped nursery would bring her on but of course lockdown hit. I had attended the NHS 6 sessions before she was 3 where they basically "teach" you skills on how to help your child progress. All things I was already doing so that was frustrating.

When she started school she was quite far behind her peers, I could understand what she was saying but there was also a lot of babbling in amongst it. The school called one day saying that she had a "melt down" and pushed for a SALT referral, I was quite happy as I kept getting fobbed off that 1-2-1 speech therapy wasn't needed. Also, it wasn't a meltdown, she had a tantrum because she was frustrated that she couldn't communicate what she wanted. I felt the school were trying to push for some sort of autism analysis and that terminology had me on high alert.

However, the appointment took ages to finally come around and within those 3 months that it took, she leapt forward with her speech. Having full blown conversations whereas before she would maybe say 3 word sentences and this was at 5.5 years old. The relief was amazing.
The 1-2-1 sessions became about working on her 'v' and 'r' sounds. Even at 7 she sometimes still says 'w' when it should be 'r' but so does Jonathan Ross so I'm not worried.

thank you that's reassuring an well done to your daughter! I've accepted the referral, anything that would help him I'm all for, he says more words and phrases than I can count so I think it was the word 'severe' that shocked me more than anything

I had a really similar experience in Reception with my child. I was shocked when the school staff told me they couldn't understand my child. Later I realised we were tuned in to each other so I knew most of what they were saying but a teacher can't tune in to 30 kids so couldn't understand what they were talking about. I hadn't picked up on how bad it was. I felt pretty insulted at first and like they were pushing for a diagnosis of something. I signed up for speech therapy and was really pleased with the progress in my child. Also a close friend has paid privately for speech therapy and it is £40 a session so I was very pleased to receive this for free. My child's speech improved massively and they are recently diagnosed as Dyslexic so I am really glad they had the SALT support when they were younger. Hope it works out well for you.

I think its the same with me, I can understand what he's saying so I'm probably unaware of how it sounds to those who don't know him. I did look into private sessions too to get the ball rolling whilst the referral and wait list is ongoing, but will see how SALT goes and go from there. thank you for the advice!

Input now will save untold challenges later on. As a SENCO I think every school should have weekly access to SALT and OT. So many things like DLD are misdiagnosed as dyslexia and ADHD. Throw money, if you have it, at him now for as much therapeutic support as you can get and it will pay dividends in all areas of his learning and social skills. Speech is only partly about talking or articulation; there are many other skills such as listening, attention, processing, reciprocity, receptive and expressive usage of language and understanding.

Just wanted to ask those who had SALT referrals, how long did it take for your referral to come through? I know it's an old thread but hoping someone will check.

Ours say to not chase unless it has been over 4 months.
Mind you, they have also said not to bother referring unless a child has swallowing difficulties or highly complex speech, language and communication issues.

We were referred to SALT but no one explained that there has to be a consultation before anything is approved so not all children will get the help they need, some will be rejected. The school never told us this. It doesn't take long to explain the process to parents!

The HT (who is also SENCO) lost our referral, which was done by the teacher in November/December. I chased it up around Easter, and only then they had realised it wasn't sent forward and was lost! So they did the referral again and it's been eight weeks, and still no consultation has occurred whether to approve the referral or not. The school claim the SALT team are not getting back to them but when I have emailed them, they have replied within two working days. The school have also.claimed there is no phone number to contact the SALT team on, however, i have found the number and gotten through to them straight away and they have confirmed my dd has no referral sent and is not on the system.

I feel frustrated.

Still waiting! Had a call with the team last month but no actual referral has been made as of yet. I know they have a long wait list but it’s very frustrating

Has he had his hearing checked recently? If you have the money private speech therapy is not very expensive.