Speech and language in reception

[CactusLover]

Hi all, my Dd has been told since her 2yr health visit she will need speech therapy, she has been at school since tots and nursey they no about her speech the school have agreed she needs extra class help and has had a speech assessment to decided what support she sipp be given.

Fast forward to reception and she still isn't getting the help as the reception teacher needs to do her own assessment even though they have the review that she needs help. The teacher is now saying she cant get books with words as she cant blend words very clearly which is her main speech problem.

Basically I have perants evening soon how do stress that she needs the support and why she isn't getting it, surely a book with words would support her speaking also.

Love a stressed and worn out mom 😅

Has she been referred to NHS speech and language?

In some areas there (used to be) drop ins for under 5s.

Normally with speech and language you would meet with a therapist one a week or once a fortnight but you as a parent would do the exercises with her ideally every day.

In schools it used to be the case that some places would have speech and language support and TAs would be told by the therapist what exercises need doing and would take time maybe once a week to work with the child but budgets have been massively cut and I would be surprised if schools offer this any more.

If you have the money you may find private quicker.

We have been given a booklet of exercises and activity to do with her which has helped some,
The school is a good school which provide additional help but it feels like they keep prolonging the actual help, they have a little tigers and little owls class which is specialized in speech that she is supposed to attend but keep they delaying her starting them.

I'd go to your GP and try and get a referral from there. Or, if you can, go private.

Exercises provided by a speech and language therapist for a school TA to work on can equally be worked on by a parent at home. Schools are very stretched, perhaps there are children in the class with significantly greater needs than your child. My DD had speech and language support and the practice was done at home with myself or her dad.

My son started reception in September. He doesn’t have any speech delay. The teacher hasn’t started sending out books with words yet, still pictures book only.

Has she been assessed by a speech and language therapist?

So she's been seen by a SALT, given exercises and sent away... then push for school to provide some TA time to consolidate these in school... or emphasise that her starting the support classes needs to be given a timescale. I bet they'll find a slot for her to start that intervention group then!

Then get them to re-refer into SALT for a further assessment/review. SALT these days in paediatrics tends to work on a block of short assessment and providing activities to work on - followed by back onto the waiting lists for another block to review and re-issue activities. (It's bollocks and it's why I would never work in paediatric SALT - the caseloads and waiting lists are horrific).

I wonder if the class teacher is thinking as she can't say the phonics sounds that she won't be able to blend them - some kids can't... some contrary little buggers like my daughter could blend and read well, despite having very little intelligible speech! That one's always a tough one! I did teach before I became a SALT and at this point in the year lots of classes won't have all the kids on reading books "with words" - do lots of building up words together (magnetic letters or the sort) with the sounds that have been covered in class (usually it starts with SATPIN which you can use to spell out lots of words).

I'd second/third/fourth private SALT if you can afford and find one without a huge waiting list (the private sector is getting swamped with how messed up NHS SALT is)... and also get a referral for a hearing test. Sounds really obvious but conditions like glue ear are so common and can have such an impact on hearing and acquiring speech sounds.

Books without words are better because it allows the child to use their own vocabulary and describe what they see and what that means. It helps children concentrate on deciphering what they see without limiting any description because they don't have the skills yet to read.
It is about developing their use of language and understanding if there is a language problem or lack of exposure to the skills they need.

If they can't identify a dog, balloon, box for example is it down to a lack language skills or a lack of life skills?

Some children can provide a detailed description of a picture book including the feelings of the characters and what they might expect next and some give a basic description. It is a useful tool and staff can model good language skills and many lower school staff have SALT skills.

Unfortunately it's the system which is broken. As a Reception teacher, I made 4 referrals last years for speech and language. We made provisions where we could in school (extra visuals etc) for those with processing issues but I find it harder with children who have speech production issues to know what to do. I'm a teacher, not a speech and language therapist. Those children are finally 'in the system', and receiving support from the speech and language therapist linked to our school, 12 months on at the start of Year 1. It took 9 months for them to be approved. It's shocking how little 'support' this actually entitles them to though. Years back, they use to come in once every 2 weeks to work with these children. Now it seems to be once a half term, which is nowhere near enough.

Once upon a time, the speech and language therapist would liase well with class TAs, having regular meetings with them and giving them targets to work on and resources to support with this, which would be copied and sent home for parents to work on daily too. Now the class teacher just gets an occasional email (twice a year?), stating targets and some suggested ideas to help (we're no longer given resources), which we then need to pass on to the TA who is to work on this child's targets with them and the S&L therapist cc's in the parent so they gave the same information. I appreciate this could be area dependent, but this is my current experience with speech and language in schools.

This year, I have 2 children who are already in the system before they started with us (like your daughter) and another 2 I am about to refer. We are yet to hear anything from the speech and language team about the ones already in the system, they are yet to visit despite them being in school for 7 weeks already now. We are chasing this, but I have no idea of their specific targets. Aybe this is what the teacher means by needing to do their own assessment? Maybe they are trying to establish what areas she needs specific support in, due to a lack of support thus far from outside agencies?

Those children I am about to refer, I sadly don't expect to be accepted for S&L support before Year 1 now (based on last year's experience of the current system).

I am so sorry you have these genuine concerns about how your daughter is being supported in school, but it's not necessarily the school's fault. Funding for all these sort of needs is at an all time low. By all means bring it up, but please don't go in all guns blazing complaining, as some are suggesting, as it's not necessarily their fault. There's only so much teachers can do to help with S&L without further guidance from those professionally trained in this area.

The use of wordless books is quite common at the start of Reception, regardless of a S&L need or not. Without the pressure of words to read, it will encourage her to talk about the pictures which tell the story in her own words. This definitely supports speaking more than decoding CVC words. They are completely different skills. So in that sense it sounds like they are supporting her needs appropriately. She'll receive books with words when she's ready, after lots of interventions to support her oral blending skills.

I sincerely hope things improve soon in terms of the support she is given, but I can only share my own experience in my own area where S&L provisions are so much poorer than they use to be :-(

These little classes may well be full of children with highly significant needs. Your daughter joining might not be the blessing that you're hoping for. Work with the school. Ask about these classes - how do they work? Who guides the support? Who delivers the support?

I've been a teacher for 20+ years. SALT provision is dire now compared to how it used to be. Speech therapists used to come into school and run interventions. They assessed every child half termly. Now you're lucky to see one once a year. Schools are given zero additional funding for interventions and are running on a shoestring so often there is not an additional adult available to run interventions. Speak to the school and ask what they can realistically do. Ask what provision can be made available , eg 10 minutes 3x per week? Do as many of the activities you've been provided with as you can.

Is it a speech or a language delay? We did speech therapy for a language delay and one of the things recommended to us was to get the Hanen “it takes two” book, I found it had a lot of great tips to support my child at home.

Depends on how severe her problems are but if you are in England you could apply for an ehc plan. They will turn you down but it might draw attention to the lack of support and get the ball moving.

My younger daughter attended a specialist speech and language school so I do sympathise

Support from SALT is very limited in schools. I teach in a resourced provision for children with speech and language needs and even there SALT only comes into school once a term to see the child. They don’t deliver any interventions themselves; They observe the child and have a conversation with me, then provide targets for me and my TAs to deliver interventions on. They don’t tell you what to do in school, they just give targets. This has massively changed from when I first started teaching here 10+ years ago and there would be weekly visits with delivered interventions.

The children all have SALT hours on their EHCPs but this is usually something like 6 hours a year and in my area is always delivered out of school.

If you have the money it would definitely help to go private. NHS SALT is overstretched and can only provide extremely limited support.