how to tackle a language development problem and who would be the best expert to help?

[MGMidget]

Our DD has a few speech and language difficulties and has had some speech therapy for these (starting with some privately at 2 and then with the NHS and privately from 4). She is now 6 and 3/4. The therapy seems to have been of limited help, considering we have had quite a lot of it! I am wondering if we need a rethink on who may be able to help her. She has had some sound pronunciation difficulties which SLTs have been quite good at improving. However, things are not working well regarding her stammer and some speech/grammar errors. Her errors include saying 'yous' instead of 'you', 'ours; instead of 'our'. She has been doing this since the early stages of learning to talk.She also tends to chop off some syllables from multi-syllable words or just get the sounds jumbled up or completely wrong. We were told to 'model' good speech, speak clearly and slowly etc and these things would correct themselves in time. However, we have tried this for over two years and it hasn't improved much. The only effective tip that worked was 'clapping syllables out' which does work very well in getting DD to practice all the sounds in a word although she will then mispronounce it again a couple of minutes later. I think these errors are actually a habit she picked up when first learning to talk (presumably from nursery as we don't make these speech errors).

Her various speech errors are also affecting her writing and spelling. As she mis-pronounces words she repeats the errors in spelling so that even her phonetic spelling is hard to decipher because of the errors (e.g. writing 'f' instead of 'th' because in her mind the word has an 'f' not a 'th' in it. I am working on correcting this with her but there are quite a few different speech/sound errors that affect speech.

I am just not sure that more SLT is going to help with this. I am wondering if an Ed Psychologist would be better at advising on this or is there role mainly to advise schools/teachers on adjustments needed at school rather than to advise on therapies? Unfortunately Ed Psyches seem to have a one year waiting list at the moment so I can't even get as far as discussing what they can offer with them as we can't wait a year!

What's schools take on this? Is there any other developmental concerns? What's dd confidence like? How quick is she to process information? You could ask for a to be referred to paediatrician for a general assessment. Is school doing any work with her for speech and are they concerned about writing? (It's normal to write phonetically at that age)

An EP assessment sounds like a good idea, but more experienced specialist SALT would also help. Does DD have an EHCP? I presume not if she hasn’t already had an EP assessment, so apply for an EHCNA, IPSEA have a model letter you can use, and among other assessments an EP assessment will be part of the needs assessment. If the LA’s EPs can’t assess within the statutory timescales they must commission an independent assessment.

We are home schooling at the moment. She was in school for reception and year one, then I took her out to home school for a while. They did some work on speech but it wasn’t very effective (although report at end of year one said she had met the objectives). School weren’t paying much attention to assessing anyone because of Covid/lockdowns. They have probably started to do that this year with things settling down a bit. My observation is that she may have a processing issue which may be affecting her speech. Her reading and writing have come along but she may have benefited from the one to one environment at home. Ed psyches seem to specialise in advising schools though. I feel like a need a hybrid speech therapist who can assess processing speed and maybe some other factors rather than just create some speech exercises to practice!