PROMPT SALT

[saintlydamemrsturnip]

Has anyone tried this? Usually when I come across something new I look at ds1 and think 'yeah right' but I found a video on YouTube of a 12 year old boy with autism doing this (and other things as well, I spotted some Kaufman cards). He started with 3 sounds and a year later had a number of words. , . I was really impressed and quite moved.

It looks as if his early speech was as disordered as ds1's and I'm really thinking about giving it a go with ds1 (if I can find a SALT, no-one very local, I have a UK list from the PROMPT institute). Just wondered if anyone had done it. DS1 tries very hard to speak- he is very vocal. He just can't. Now he can imitate he will try to copy sounds but again can't. (For example he's been trying very hard to say 'shut' this morning but it comes out as a fired 'ta').

PROMPT Institute website here

Fantastic & he is obviously so proud of himself.
DS2's speech started very disordered he would always use the most dominant sound, so he would say "ta" for shut or just "P" for UP the other sound wouldn't be there at all. He astered ti over time but now we are starting on reading he seems to be going through exactly the same process, so regardless of wht the word starts with will only pick out the most dominant sound, so still have not got passed the letter sounds as he cannot seem to do it when the letters are together to make a word.
His speech was exactly the same.
All my ramblings don't help you at all, sorry, just rambling :)

HI don't know much about it, but know there is some dodgy practice around this so make sure you go with a recognised person.

can't look at videos now (on phone) but will have a look later - sounds really interesting.

dd1 used to struggle to speak a lot. she cuold only say "da" for what seemed like years.

we had to interpret what she was saying by how many "da"s there were, what inflection, intonation etc.

she cuold do whole conversations , but it was incredibly hard for anyone else to work out what she was saying (I used to think "how can you not know? it's bloody obvious!", but even then I could see that was unreasonable of me)

once she sorted out what to do (convinced it was an oral/facial motor issue - she couldn't even smile, or make any expressions well. used to wrinkly her nose instead of smiling, but you could tell she was trying really hard), I thought her speech was really clear (really honestly did) - now I look back at videos, and it is totally garbled.

her fluency has increased over the years, yet I am still amazed when poele in shops etc don't understand what she says - clear a sa bell to me, yet her ABA cons, for eg, will see her after a break and say "gosh, hasn't her speech clarity come on?"

sounds like something we could have really done with (and maybe still could - as I say, lots of people struggle to understand dd1, althoguh I really can't see why now)

Yes ds1 has whole conversations with people who understand - but all made up of 'na'. 'naiya naiya naiya naya na'. We have a trainee SALT working with us this holiday (not doing SALT - an extra pair of hands) & she commented that 'na' is very dominant.

He does look proud doesn't he anon!

What sort of dodgy practice Crunchy? There's no-one listed within a few hundred miles. There is someone on ASLTIP who says she workswirh autism/ld's and verbal dystaxia so I was going to chat to her.

have finally managed to see the clips - how fantastic!

It definitely is something that wuold have helped dd1 lots when she was non-verbal. but of course we were fobbed off witht h usual wait-an-see approach, and then the well-she-obviously-isn't-going-to-be-cured-so-why-bother- approach

beofre I even had dd1, this is the type of thing i imagined SALT to be about.

I didn't imagine the langugae side as such, but always thought more of the stroke patient with frozen muscles, etc - being taught how to recognise which muscles to use, isolating the right ones etc

and then of course, i entered the wonderful world of SALT, and my illusions were shattered!

I'll have to see if I can find some footage of dd1 when she was little - you could really see her trying to copy, but she couldn't isolate the right muscles.

that's what a lot of her mirror/reflection obsession has been about - she practices speech shapes, in classic over exaggeration manner. of course now she has the skills to do that, and annoying though it is at times in shops etc,it has really helped her.

WHY isn't this kind of thing more widespread?

It is in the states... I have just come back from working with the MIND institute and if a child is not using words after around 6 months of therapy (ESDM) PROMPT is just used as part of a childs therapy as if it were the most normal thing un the world...probably why ESDM results are so good- over 90% of their kids develop functional 3-4 word sentence speech after 2 yrs.
There are a couple of PROMPT salts in the UK and a few in EIRE...

I think in the UK no-one bothers to think flexibly so complex kids are buggered.

I don't think anything would have worked that well until recently as ds1 couldn't imitate. Now he can abd is trying this would be do useful.

There is no-one prompt trained anywhere near us though. Boo hoo. I have started done tentative enquiries.

hmm will follow this , silvefrog how long did it take for dd to make the correct shapes with nher mouth we been trying for over 2 years now and ds just can not make the right shapes.We know he has severe oral dyspraxia

RGO - I would love to know more about what you dud with MIND. Are they the ones researching cytokines?

have spent the afternoon looking through old videos of dd1.

Can't find any form her "da" phase (at the time, not somehtign I wanted to record, iyswim), but have found a couple from when she got a lot more interactive - mostly singing - she didn't do a lot of talking, initially.

In fact, without her wanting to try to learn the songs, I don't think she would have really kicked off communicating the way she did. They gave her a reason to try to talk to us - she would pester for em to sing again and again, while she studied face/mouth shape.

will try to upload over the weekend.

It's fascinating - the ones I found are from when I could properly understand what she was saying (not just from the tunes, as she would bring songs back from nursery too that I didn't know, and I could work out what she was saying), but looking back now, you can make it out, but it is quite hard work.

she's probably just under 4, so films about 2 years old.

the whole centre part of her face, top lip, cheeks, and around the base of her nose, isn't used at all - she obviously hadn't worked out how to use that bit (although she was smiling well by this stage, no longer just wrinkling her nose). she really only uses her top lip for "mmm" and a couple of others.

sorry, roundthebend, x-post.

erm, trying to think.

she started "talking" at 2.6 ish - that was the "da" phase. everything said was using that one shape/noise.

I can remeber her first clear (to me) word - "water". probably, in reality came out as "auh-ta". I know the person sitting next to her (her godmother) cuoldn't understand it, even once I'd translated. she must have been about 3.6, I suppose.

And since then, her speech has got clearer and clearer. No sudden leaps, just slowly, slowly getting better at making the right shape/sound.

some are still worng, eg she says "cuvoard", instead of "cupboard", and "ath-ter" not "after", but she is still improving.

she's 6 now (just), and as I said earlier, I think her speech is really clear.

will definitely upload some films, essier than trying to describe it!

You are so right that nobody in the UK thinks flexibly about complex kids- I am just setting up an early intervention service up here in Scotland and the LA professionals already think I am crazy because a) i am hoping to get at least 1 of our SALTs trained in PROMPT- and LA SALTS seem to regard it as some kind of physical torture and b)I am aiming at children from 18 months and have been told this is too young...average age of children on the early early intervention programmes in states are 15 months and they start at 9 months in some projects....
Saintly- I was doing my training in the ESDM approach at the MIND and yes they are doing research into all kinds of stuff there- it was AMAZING (and I got to spend 1:1 time with Dr Rogers as my coach- sooo exciting!!)
www.avuk.org/contact.html these guys have a PROMPT trained therapist on their team as do these www.childrenstherapies.co.uk/marianne.html

I like to think I am open to anything and this stuff does look interesting.
But what many people don't realise is that very often, speech production issues overlay more deepseaed language issues, in which case, work on improving the mechanics, may not have a noticable difference.

You have to take that into account before embarking on a very demanding physical programme which is even more demanding for someone with SN.

yes guess ds would apply that to that as has devlopmetal verbal dyspraxia to with teh oral dyspraxia and has a delayed understanding to .but never had a problem with him not wanting to communicate

Ds is 5 now and still only the nouns coming out really hope speech unit can help ,

There's sharnay mail as well. Sounds fab RGO!

I understand what you are saying moondog (there would have been absolutely no point trying anything with ds1 until he learned to imitate) but no-one ever looks. When he was 2 I was told 'there's no point doing anything because he doesn't understand anything anyway' and that's been about the extent of it. SALTs turn up and leave photocopied sheets of 'feed the monster' (to a child who doesn't even know what a monster is).

Now everyone agrees that the biggest thing that holds him back is tools to communicate. We recently met up again with a fab private SALT who worked with him when he was little and she commented how hard he is working to communicate and how keen he is. He was constantly popping in to show me stuff, have some back and forth (very limited because as soon as we stray off known topics I can't understand a word he's saying).

If people assessed him and found that really he's not ready for some particular reason, fair enough. But no-one has ever assessed him in that way. In the last 2 days messing around playfully we've got 3 new sounds out of him and a two new word approximations. This is without having the faintest idea what we are doing and just during family back and forth.

I don't think DS1 will ever speak in sentences. But - if he had say 20 words that could be understood by someone other than me it would improve his life dramatically. 10 words would. He talks to me all the time. Then he goes out and talks to very few people because they don't understand him.

I picked him up from respite recently and one of the workers (also a TA at school) called someone else to watch our conversation and then said 'I love watching you two talk to each other, it's just brilliant, it so lovely see him communicating so easily and really enjoying it' or something like that.

Today he tried with my SALT student whilst I was off doing something with the other kids but it failed at the first hurdle because he was saying 'nayee nayee nayee' whilst pointing at a photo then 'nunye nunye' (plus sign). She understood nunights meaning sleeping, but had no idea who the person in the photo was or what nayee nayee nayee meant. She guessed respite (and actually he does call respite nayee as well which she had heard, so it was a good guess)- but he was actually saying 'granny' as it was a photo of my mum. He's going to sleep there next week. If he had a closer approximation to granny she would have understood him. It was nice he tried-and a good reflection on her - he doesn't bother with people who he thinks won't understand.

I think sometimes what might seem like tiny pointless progress to a professional (certainly in the cash strapped NHS) can be huge to families or the individual. And I would love to see more put into these small gains.

PMSL justabout

Oh RGO wrt early intervention. I sit on a steering panel for a local early intervention programme (or did, I think it might have had some problems recently). But the biggest problem they've had is finding children who need them. Often they're not getting them until they're 4 which is too late. The purposely haven't made diagnosis necessary to start the programme but they're just not getting people sending the children their way.

It's a good programme - I would have loved it for ds1.

The biggest thing for us will be raising awareness amongst parents and professionals... We are a charity (just awaiting our number!!) and will be providing a very unique service- home based programmes (20 hrs hopefully per week) plus a specialist nursery for 2.5 - 4 yr olds)
would be interested in hearing about your local project-could you email me OT on [email protected]

Wow that sounds brilliant - will email you now.....

I understand what you say too Saintly.

Sadly, with the NHS the way it is, the chances of a SALT being able to have the time to do that are incredibly remote.

It's just a skim the surface job, frankly and will get worse. The service is so thinly stretched I often wonder what the point of it is at all.

Oh I agree moondog.

I was talking to my trainee SALT today. I thought that if there were more private clinics run in a business like way (rather than mum working alone from home round her children - not that there's anything wrong with that) then they could provide this sort of therapy. They would also be able to look at providing therapy funded through say the Caudwell trust (or something similar) so that it became available to more people. Or maybe be able to offer a certain % of cheaper slots. Mum working from home just can't do that.

Maybe I sound like a Tory, but it's clear that the NHS is never going to provide something like this -whoever is in charge - and I think alternate ways of providing affordable therapy via encouraging the private sector could really help.

I'm wondering whether to approach the local private SALT and see whether she would be interested in giving it a go, or whether to go to one of the pros (perhaps the one in the video) and see whether we could do something distance wise.

I really think that it's realistic to think that we could get ds1 saying some single words. I don't expect anything else but I would be happy to work towards it with guidance and I really think he would benefit.

oh - btw he picked out (read) DOGS from a sign today.

Actually I'm almost wondering whether to apply to train as a SALT myself and do it myself :o I actually can't as I couldn't manage the placements.

Have emailed RGO :)