First SALT Assessment.

[Insanitybecomesme]

Ds3 is 3.5yrs and has a 'suspected' ASD diagnosis, the pead has said that if she is satisfied with his reports(SALT,Orthoptic and audiology) when she sees him next then she will formalise his ASD diagnosis.

The SALT is coming on Thursday to see him for the first time and I was wondering what peoples experiences were when it comes to initial assessments.
Ds has significant speech delay(he has significant developmental delay think 3.5yr going on 24m), he also likes routine and will not like a stranger being in the house let alone trying to communicate with him.
Any advice would be appreciated thank you.

My DS saw the SALT with me at a clinic, not at home, but what she did was to observe his play and interactions with me and the other DC at the clinic. At home she/he will be seeing your DS in an environment in which he is most comfortable. She will watch his play and be interacting with him to observe his social communication. She may have some games for him to play, to check his receptive language, and maybe some pictures to look at and comment on, depending on his level of comprehension. It's all quite painless and hopefully fun for your DS.

Thanks I hope he does find it fun or he will just ignore her!

If he actively ignores her that is still evidence of his communication deficits. They can be really clever, these SALTs, seeing things in behaviour that you would never think of. And she'll have seen it all before and won't be fazed if he won't co-operate.

my sonis great one to one, and has his first SALT on 19th may, this worries me she will say ha is ok when clearly he is not, he has bad social skills and no eye contact with children or his peers and in a classroom he struggles, i have spoke to u on another thread ellenjane 1

Thanks EllenJane1 his assessment last week went really well and she agrees that My ds presents as being on the autistic spectrum.
Lisa6967 The salt spent 1hr at our home in that time she commented on the lack of eye content, his body language and lots of other factors, she then went and visited his nursery setting the following afternoon and observed his interation or lack of it.

On arrival here she asked what our concerns were I told her that we believe he has autism and I gave the reasons as too why, she did say she was glad I said that as she is not able to suggest ASD to parents as that is the peads job, but as he is already being seen by the pead she could confirm traits as she saw them. Likewise she was not able to give us any literature specific to ASD until he has a diagnosis.

I hope you find the assessment as helpful as we have.

mine is at the clinic, thru the triage as they call it, got parentpartnership coming with us for support, apparantley app will last bout 20 mins??

my ds has had ed pyschs report and came back with all the traits, handflapping, repetitiveness, no eye contact with children or peers, becomes distressed in change of routine, cannot make his own choices, humming noises throughout the day, lack of empathy, and paed report said significant characteristics of communication disorder ie HFA, but cant go any further till had SALT assessment now.

Each area works so differently re diagnosing ASD, we aproached our HV in November re his traits and she came out to observe him at home and complete some questionnaires, from that she made referals to the pead and SALT.
We saw the pead at the beginning of March, she had met our son before as she is pead to another of our sons who has dyspraxia and other issues, she gave him a provisional ASD diagnosis but also referred him to the local childrens hospital for hearing and eye tests. We also had some questionnaires to answer.
Last week he saw the SALT, this week his hearing was checked as best they could and given the all clear, on the 4th May we have the orthoptic check so with luck a formal diagnosis will be given in June.

My son has similar traits he also tiptoe walks and spins alot, and now his twin siblings can walk my house is a war zone.

i bet it is!! my sons hearing came back ckear and paed reffered him for fragile x test which came back normal, i not heard of the orthptic check wots that? my sons motor skills are ok just odd movements the flapping and gyrating up and down on the floor in a trance like state, and rigid movements with his arms and shoulders, everything on hold now until SALT, did u not have to go to a panel then for ur asd diagnosis? I keep hearing about this bloody autism panel also known as speach and language panel where all the info goes in and they all decide if it asd or not, how can these people do this when they will probably never even get to meet the child concerned!!

Glad things are progressing, insanity. It's important that you chase up for support at preschool or nursery to make sure you have appropriate support in time for school. It normally has to be done in parallel to the medical DX, so get on to the SENCo at nursery if you haven't already.

Hi again lisa. Hope your SALT assessment goes well. Take your list of concerns, leave a copy with the SALT if you can. They are normally quite good at picking up pretty subtle signs, but let her know if your DS behaves particularly unusually well. Good luck.

hi ellenjane 1 yes i will take all my concerns with me, and tell her he will be good one to one with her but has all these other issues, i taking a lady from parent partnership with me for moral support, she is very good :)