What does a good SALT look like?

[StarkAndWitchesWillFindYou]

I want to hire a private one. I need one to understand about autism, but not assume that we have to work on joint attention and initiating interaction.

I want someone that can help sort out ds' disordered language at a time when he is desperate and motivated to talk and help him understand the grammar etc. and the complex pronouns.

This is my weakest area of knowledge, so I could be talking complete nonsense and joint attention is in fact what we really need. I don't know.

Has anyone got anything to add or help?

Oh and roughly what is the cost for a home visit?

Have a look at the NAS National Autistic Society web site, or phone up their phone help line. I think they have a list of professional listed by post code or town or region.

You need a SALT who understqnds qnd is qualified in using ABA:
Sadly; I think there are qbout 4 or 5 in the UK: Have you thought of contqcting Pyramid the PECS fok for qdvice. They would know good folk I think: One of them, Julia, is a salt who is about to become BCBA;

Ooooh Mondog where'd you come from?

DS' NHS SALT who can't write a SMART target if her life depended on it (even though I couldn't fault her for committment), is intermediate trained in Holistic Approach to Neuro-Development and Learning Efficiency (HANDLE) and likes to use this approach according to her independent advert on the internet.

What the frig is that? Is it a good thing?

Sounds like absolute tripe.
wHAT IS EVIDENCE BQSE,
wHAT DOES IT ?EQN she wiill actually do???

Gentle activity-based treatment method for learning disabilities and other difficulties. Draws on a number of other methods eclectically. Attempts to work on, or work around, aspects of an individual?s neurodevelopment that are preventing them from learning; and to avoid any ?overload? that would be detrimental to learning.

The HANDLE Institute is based in the USA but the web site lists trained providers in the UK, www.handle.org/contents.html.

Lewis DH et al. Imaging cerebral activity in recovery from chronic traumatic brain injury: a preliminary report. Journal of Neuroimaging 2006 Jul;16(3):272-7. (Small study of effects of HANDLE techniques on traumatic brain injury. This is the only published peer-reviewed study found, though the providers of the therapy may know of more.)

Oh no! It's worse than I thought......we're doomed! Doomed I tell you.....

By the way Mrs Gloomy. Tain't helpful to tell someone that they need one of only 5 people in the UK!

No wonder she is refusing to engage with me or tell me anything about any targets set or why.

Why on earth did they pick someone with THAT background to work with an ABA family?

I'll call the PECS people though. That's a good idea.

if you want to be better at doing something; whqt you need to do is do more of it.
The bizarre belief prevails in education qnd therapy that if you want to inprove one area, you go and do so,ething else such as /exercises to develop qnd free neurL PATHWAYS/;
Nuts.

I*d advise you to look at Precision Teaching which is basically ABA with bells on: I know of nothing better qnd it is foundqtion of all I do and always will be:

I can't keep up with you. I've just got to grips with very basic Tag Teach for dressing.

I think the issue now is that we have ds' rigidity cracked. We have his joint attention cracked. We have his social interaction cracked.

But his social communication is a disaster. He has all the words and will make himself understood using them but my word it's garbled. I need someone to help me sort it out. I grew up in the 80s and never had grammar lessons. I don't know how to structure a sentence myself. I don't know how to break it down to teach it.

All I get from ds' SLT is that his vocab is poor in areas I know it isn't. Bloody animals. He says the first thing that comes into his head as they are the most unmotivating thing for him UNLESS he is motivated. Ask him which animal has ds' lego piece on it and he'll tell you correctly. Ask him 'what is that?' and he'll tell you it's a dinosaur!

'if you want to be better at doing something; whqt you need to do is do more of it'

Really? I thought you just laminated supportive pictures to avoid having to learn the actual skill at all!

Well that sounds great/
I think you hqve to remember that even best most ABA friendly SALT in the world cqnùt magic qway problems and disorder though: You cqnùt remove chunks of spoken lqnguqge qnd replqce with chunks of improved lqnguage and even if you could; it would be a situqtion of effort in not corresponding with outcomes qnd highlu unlikely to be availqble on NHS/

I do take issue with many behavioural consultQNTS who seem to think you can do this although to be fair it is a new field qnd uncharted territory as only now are BAs starting to work with kids with more advqnced lqnguage/

I can only repeat whqt I say:. Precision Teaching; once you hqve q achild who can coMoperqte, is best thing bar none/

Excuse typing; abroqd on furrein keyboard:

Oh I'm not expecting miracles, I'm expecting guidance. A bit difficult with a SALT who thinks ds can progress if she dances around him and who refuses to communicate with me.

So where do I start with the whole precision teaching thing then. May as well learn about it. My ds might be 4 with autism, but my dd is 2 and we have plans for her passing entrance exams with full scholarships!

[http://precisionteaching.pbworks.com/ GET READING]

Google SAFMEDS too
Cornerstone of all my work

Moondog - have just looked at those sights and the need for regularity etc I suppose this explains why thrice yearly oversight by a NHS SALT isn't going to achieve much for the development of pragmatic language skills!

No, it,s a complete waste of time frankly/ Frequency is most important dimension of all/

Thanks Moondog, I will use that in my parental statement that I have to complete tonight!

yOU WILL HAVE TO JUSTUFY IT AND HIGHLY LIKELY YOU WONT GET MORE: M OST SPECIAList intervention in filed of SN is complete waste of time.

I think it could do Debs, if she is a 'consultant' to people delivering it who do know what they are doing.

I'm having a ridiculous time trying to find a private SALT. The first lot that came up on the search were ones I've already been through in my climb to get someone that knew more than how to blow bubbles,

• then I went through a bunch that told me that they would want to work with the NHS one (me too, but the reason I want them is because the NHS one works alone) and weren't interested in the fact that the one task we had been set over the holidays as a result of badgering has already been mastered as I know how to get the results, but instead chose to inform me that ds needs time to consolodate and generalise.

How's that gonna happen then?

So I dismissed them as they appeared alongside the ones I've already had they're probably similar.

I now have been in touch with 2 much more sensible ones who seem to understand where I am coming from, seem to understand how to engage a reluctant NHS SALT to work with them, - but as you would expect their waiting lists are LONG.

DS needs input NOW. SO, I guess as always, that means me becoming an expert in Speech and Language Therapy as it applies to ds. I might get some of it wrong but so far even with me getting things wrong, it seems to work at a pace faster than any 'professional' ever predicts.

It's just that the other stuff seemed so much easier in comparison. SALT seems bloody complicated and I don't even know where to start.

I'm guessing pracise at short model phrases in engineered set ups and then model of the generalisation in different settings and incidentally. But it's a guess.

I'm guessing to that some work on learning set conversation turn-taking back and forth as well to teach the 'concept' of conversation. But again, I'm making it up.

Still, it's more of a plan than I've seen from any other public sector professional that is working with him.

We have an independent SALT who says what you are saying too. It seems as if they always do things one way and don't see the need to try anything else, despite the fact that there is no evidence that these partial 'oversight' interventions actually produce any kind of results. In fact, they seemed to think they were offering me more than they usually do as they 'deal with language problems, not ASD'??

Moondog, can I hijack, and ask you about this precision teaching thing. I read some stuff before when we talked about it, but this is where I get confused:

DD1 has LD. I get that.
She also has fine motor problems.

So, say I wanted to teach her letter formation, how would I know if she was not getting it because of her LD, or because her hands just can't do the stuff, for example?

Unless you find someone to work with what your child doing every day, it is a waste of time:
So think carefully before you spend money. They must have access to public service or your child:s everyday activity/

Right, so I've just learned all about Charting from a 5yr old who is actually older than me

Have no idea what needs to be charted or how. My head hurts atm.