SALT assessment ? What next

[Eastyone]

Hi

My son aged 9 has been attending speech and language therapy within the NHS for about two years. I referred him after a chat with a teacher who thought he would benefit from some extra help he has a problem with ch and j sounds. He has a mild hearing loss in one ear.
At school he has an IEP (no statement) and needs extra help with writing and communication skills (he is reluctant to ask for help and he sometimes finds it difficult to express himself). His maths is good as is his reading.
Initially he attended every three months he had 5 appointments each with a different SALT usually only lasting about 10 minutes and just practising the sounds. I have been asking each time for exercises / games / books that we could do together at home and each time told just practise the sounds.
At his last IEP review (which seems to work well) the SENCO asked about his speech therapy and I said we would keep attending but it didn?t seem to be a lot of help as he always saw someone different and didn?t really seem to be progressing. She then offered to call them and see what else they could offer. Over the summer he has had 4 appointments with a SALT and a ?full assessment? (probably about 3 hours in total).

The first 3 appointments were fine (same SALT) but the last and final part of the test were with a different SALT (who didn?t normally work at that centre) she was quite hurried and the test was completed quickly. She said my son was in the 5th percentile in two parts of the test and would need some therapy ? she would send some worksheets through and we would take it from there.
Today in the post a very brief A4 sheet has arrived stating this is ?a programme ?of therapy? It just mentions word groups and word pairs and gives a couple of examples.

My questions are:
What should happen after an assessment?
Should we be sent a copy or a review consultation?
With regards to the word exercises are there any worksheets? Online / websites I can join / or books as although I can devise some games around the examples I?m not sure they will be right
The recent assessment seems to have forgotten the original reasons we attended. After assessment is there a level at which they would no longer provide help?

Sorry for being so long winded and thanks for reading

Eastyone

If you can look for a private based speech therapist this may be the way to go; have used NHS speech therapy services and they are patchy at best.

I would also cut and paste this query of yours onto the Special Needs forum of this website as you will likely get some replies that way too (also some SALTs reply on there).

BTW why is there no statement in place?.

HTH

Attila

I thought I had posted in special needs ? Is there another forum - sorry its my first post so might be in the wrong place
Not sure why he would need a statement - his problems are varied but all fairly small and managed quite well within the terms of the IEP

Hi

There is indeed another forum on MN called Special Needs. This is contained in the "Being a Parent" section on the homepage; think its on the right hand side about half way down (just click on the words).

I only mentioned the Statement as sometimes the surest way of getting specialist provision in school (i.e over and above what the school can provide) is via such a document.

Thanks have posted there too

I'd suggest you have a look at the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists' (accessible on line RCSLT.org) standards for services. This should help answer some of your questions about what you can reasonable expect. All SLT services have to sign up to something called 'communicating quality' which outlines standards for practice. Services are fee to make their own prioritisation criteria, however, based on local need and finding often.
For this type of speech difficulty your son would need to show a high degree of self awareness and motivation to change - that's what will make the difference in his speech, not the actual SLT appointments. The sppointments should guide you/ school about what to do, then really it's up to him to be putting in the practice. The SLT should be ther to rpovide you with all the activities to do - their expertese will be in constructing a sensible step by step plan eg: consonant alone, then consonant and vowel etc.
In terms of severity, if it's ch and j that he struggles with, developmentally theses are very late sounds to be acquired so in isolation this wouldn't be a huge worry.
Hope that's of some help.

God my typing's awful sorry. Meant free not fee and funding not finding