Reducing SLT because SLT can't address autism

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SLT said ds doesn't have any language issues. They are all communication and caused by his autism.

When I criticised her report for having a great deal of detail about all the things ds was struggling with, and the next steps he needs, but no strategies for HOW to do this she said quite openly:

'That is because I don't KNOW how to'.

I could have kissed her for that despite it being an awful thing to hear. At least she isn't pretending.

The trouble is, where do I go from here. DS had been doing ABA until we lost a tribunal and our ABA consultant knows 'HOW' but the school have had orders from above telling them that they are not allowed to engage with anything that might look to them like ABA as the tribunal ordered against it.

Hi, does your borough not have an autism advisory team? Or a specialist SLT who can give you ideas on how to do the 'next steps'?

I'm a bit confused about the tribunal, I'm guessing the borough were funding the ABA and the tribunal cut the funding?

What are the 'next step's from the SLT report? Sorry, that's just more questions, no help from me!

The next steps are that he needs to talk to his peers and that he needs to put his words in the right order.

The autism people were there at the time and didn't say anything.

We were funding the ABA ourselves but ran out of money.

also are there any local autism support groups? or have you tried NAS helpline?

yes. I think it is more that there aren't many children like him.

In a test environment his speach and language come out the lower end of normal. But in the classroom this isn't reflected.

and your SALT cannot come up with strategies to get your ds talking to his peers?

granted the words in order bit is a little trickier, but the peer stuff is jsut bread and butter SALT, surely? a million and one little ways to go about this (and yes, i have learned most of them through ABA, but none of them are essentially ABA techniques - just plain common sense stuff, approached methodically)

can you suggest stuff to SALT, for her to suggest to school? we have talked about the addressing peers issue before, i think - the ways of going about it are simple enough, you do need it to be recorded well though, with single step targets (will school comply with targets form SALT, or are all proper targets to be disregarded because they may be tainted by ABA?)

what are SALT's suggestions re: word order? both why he does it, and where to go form here? we use a lot of model/copy with dd1, but I suspect that your school woudln't touch that wiht a barge pole.

sorry x posts there

school could arrange a 'circle of friends' type group then to address the talking to his peers. The autism people should be able to give them info on that. Does he want to talk to his peers? Has he been given some conversational strategies?

how old is he?

Putting words in the right order..... what does he do now? Is he getting a sentence out but the words are in the wrong order? Is there a pattern to this? Is the meaning clear of what he says? Can he read independently?

sorry more questions!

I'm not allowed to suggest anything because it might be ABA by the backdoor. Everything I have ever said they have said they are 'opposed to that approach', even if I said I'd rather he didn't eat the orange peel.

He's only nursery age.

I don't need ideas. I have a million. I know exactly how to improve his communication skills. The school don't and yet refuse to listen to any of my ideas, puting it all down to him having autism.

sorry, that was blunt. I'm just so cross.

'opposed to that approach'!! are you happy with this nursery?

well, you know that "I don't know" form the SALT isn't a good enough answer.

so, what are you going to do about it?

chase, chase, chase - as ever.

take it over her head - if she doesn't know, get referred on to someone who does.

don't let her just sit back, say she can't help (which is effectively what she is saying) and not accept suggsestions form you.

keep pushing.

Can a tribunal really order a school from using support that might 'look to them like ABA'??

If the school are generally supportive of the ABA approach, and you have a statement for 1:1 (?), could the LSA be unofficially trained by you? So they would still be within the LA boundaries by being employed by the school, not being an official ABA tutor, but could have some training at home under the official guise of learning about ds etc, but being briefed on ABA approach? Ok it wouldn't be exactly like proper ABA but better than the alternative.

What about private SALT?

Im not surprised you're cross, I'd be furious.

how about talking to SALT, and putting your ideas across to her - as un-ABA'd as you can make them! - and then challenging her directly to tell you how they coudl possibly be construed as ABA.

the targets dd1 has for talking to peers are totally not ABA. they are engineered, yes, but then any therapy is, to a certain extent.

they cannot disagree with engineering a situation in order to delier help and support.

so, work on the SALT - ge ther onside, and agreeing with you that the ideas you have are not ABA, and then get her to suggest them to the school.

if you are saying that she willnot even have this conversation with you, then I'd be asking for different professionals to be involved due to breakdown of relationship ,tbh (been there, done that)

Okay. Firstly, the nursery don't know anything about ABA but are opposed to it because the LA have told them to be.

The nusery are excellent in all other respects.
I asked the school if our ABA consultant could come in just once a term and they said that they have had orders to take any such requests to the LA.

When I found out who in the LA, it was the HEAD of SEN, who has made the same ruling for all schools in the LA.

It was not the tribunal who ruled not to allow any engagement with ABA, it is the LA, who have told the school that this is because the tribunal ruled against it.

I can change nursery but I can't change LAs. The LA is responsible for this.

silverfrog, I think the problem is that I can come up with the targets but even if they are taken on board there is no point in working on them just a couple of times a week. They need to be worked on several times a day.

This is the thing I'll never get, even if they are excellent targets.

The SLT doesn't work in the classroom and won't.

I'd agree with silverfrog - the school may listen to the SLT. Has the SLT completely discharged your ds? I'd have a chat with her and tell her you know HOW to do those next steps, but you need her support with getting the school on board. If she's no help, have you spoken to the Educational Psychologist?

There's lots of research to say what works with the under 5's. I expect you already know the 'research autism' website.

Do you have any options re a different nursery?

They do disagree with engineering a situation because then it isn't 'child-led'.

(although this is ridiculous and even I have pointed out that it is impossible to meet ANY child's educational needs in a purely child-led way, let alone manage a classroom, but they don't seem to agree)

sorry x posted re the nursery

NO. We approached a private nursery, but even they are so heavily regulated and monitored by the LA that even when they agreed to some ABA input, they had to tell the LA who then made conditions that made it impossible for the private nursery to agree.

I do see what yuo are saying re: number of times a target is worked on, but disagree to an extent.

a bit like any ABA is better than no ABA - a couple of times a week is better than none.

as for the child led - hmm, was afraid you'd say that.

how many sessions does your ds do?

what opportunities for outside engagement with children? (tumble tots, soccatots, toddler groups etc)

until we sacrificed dd1 to the system that was her crappy TEACCH pre-school, she spent more time working on these targets with me at friendly toddler groups/tumbletots etc than she ever did at pre-school.

if pre-school is not working for your ds, then you can always take him out (and I do not say this lightly - it nearly killed me when I did it with dd1). but (and I have said this to you before, I htink) - it was only by sacrificing that year, and putting dd1 through hell and letting her regress that we were able to prove our point adequately. shitty, but true.

the Early YEars foundation child-led crap is just that - but don't ge tme started on that rant.

I'd be looking at opportunities you can use to your advantage - socialising according to your rules at a toddler group (even if the other children are a year or so younger than him) is going ot be better for your ds than the child led shit at nursery.

Ok, I'm summarising to check I've got all this right.

You've got 2 problems - 1 is that you can't afford ABA anymore, the LA won't provide it, (you've even gone to tribunal and answer is still no).

The 2nd problem is that your nursery have a 'child-led' approach, which means that they won't engineer any situation to work on your ds's targets and are frightened that anything you suggest will be ABA based and they 'aren't allowed to do it'.

Have I got this right?

Yes. Having said that, whilst they bang on about 'child-led' they were the most structured state nursery around which is why I sent ds there.

As a consequence, he is happy there, if not learning.

The SLT is actually a bit of a rebel and has stuck her nose out for us already a couple of times, but she is resident in the school and employed by them, so isn't easily able to go against them.

When she told the whole meeting that she didn't know HOW to improve his communication skills, the autism person just looked at her hands and the class teacher frowned as if she had let the side down.

It is positive that your ds is happy there. But looking at it from the other side, if he's not kicking off, then they don't have a lot of motivation to change anything. I'm most definitely not suggesting that anyone does anything to make him unhappy and kick off btw!

But I am baffled as to how you're supposed to improve your ds's communication skills if it's all child led. Children with autism don't learn as easily through copying others, they have to 'engineer' situations to work on his targets. I have heard of this in nursery settings, they seem to think everyone has to be treated the same, not really getting that everyone has to have the same access to the curriculum, which will mean that some people have to be treated differently.

Your SLT saying she doesn't know how, is not good enough, as you know. She has to go and find out.