Calling all SALTS - help please!

[TheTimeTravellersWife]

I have just had what I can only describe as a bizarre conversation with DD's SALT. She called me out of the blue, to update me on DD. Great, I was really pleased that she had taken the time to call me to talk about DD.

BUT, she then proceeded to say that as DD's progress had slowed, she would be recommend at our AR that her SALT provision is reduced from weekly to termly! The reason she gave for this reduction was that DDs social communication difficulties were due to her autism, that she would have life-long difficulties with social communication and that further weekly SALT sessions would not help.

DD has also been diagnosed with a speech and language disorder, that is separate from the difficulties caused by the ASD, but apparently, that has now been overcome and all the difficulties now are with social communication which is ASD related and cannot be overcome by weekly SALT sessions. She said that her speech was now "age appropriate" but she had on going difficulties with social communication.

I maybe a bit thick, but unless you are talking to yourself, isn't all communication social?! Therefore, she has communication difficulties, therefore she should continuing having regular SALT sessions.

Can any SALTs out there point me in the direction of some research on SALT and ASD to that I can use to counter the argument that as her progressed has slowed, she should have less SALT input.

Surely, she should at least retain the same level of input if her progress has slowed.
I just don't accept that because she has ASD, she cannot make further progress with her communication skills.

She caught me "on the hop" cooking lunch for DS, so I didn't think to ask her for copies of her latest assessment tests.
But I did try to explain that 1:1 with someone she knows well she will perform much better than with a stranger or in a group situation.

Just looking for evidence to counter her recommendation that DD's SALT is significantly reduced.

Lougle I suppose I can see it to some extent, but there seems to be a lot of stories where the bad use of visuals is so inappropriate and damaging to a child's developement, that wanting rid of the system is the easiest and quickest way to challenge the thinking of those who use them.

My 2 second teacher appointment could only get across 'no visuals', which is absolutely NOT what I meant. What I meant was that their teaching strategies were getting in the way of my ds' learning, confusing him and making him anxious.

However, I can also see on here the stories and anetdotal evidence that put into context what it is about visuals that can be a problem (i.e. they are not thought out and there is no learning outcome for the child). And I feel strongly that this 'problem' is fairly wide spread

It isn't the 'visuals' model that I challenge, it is the visuals model that so many teachers/staff are implementing. And that model is one where you look at your visual resources and then try to find a problem within the child that you can use it on, rather than the other way round. If you can't easily find that problem in the child then you insist it is still there but hidden somewhere but causing behaviours.

I suppose to be fair thought his is a problem in many mainstream classrooms with any 'support'. You get trained in solutions to problems you don't know you have yet and then, since you are employed to deliver those solutions, you have to find or interpret those problems or else you are at a loss or out of a job.

Justabout That's a good point, but it has to start with comprehension. I mean whatever problems visuals are going to solve, the child has to UNDERSTAND them. If they are CAUSING anxiety you have a choice of two.

1)Do a detailed analysis of what you are trying to achieve, what the likely steps are and where the hitch might be occurring.

2)Stop using visuals.

I would prefer ds' school to do 1, but they see this as ABA and refuse, so to protect ds I have to insist on 2.

Perhaps then, the distinction is between children with conditions which affect their ability to access information, such as ASD, who would otherwise be quite capable of learning it, and children with conditions that affect their ability to learn. I can't quite word it effectively.

In other words, what I have picked up from you in particular, Star, is that your DS is actually very intelligent, and very able to learn, but his ASD caused him to have an impairment in his ability to understand 'why' to learn. You had to work on getting him to co-operate, but then he can learn at a rate 4xfaster than peers.

DD1 has a 'learning disability'. With the best will in the world, even if you get DD1 to cooperate, she will learn much more slowly than her peers. She is still at a stage of saying 'girl, boy, girl girl' when her 3 year old sister is reading the words next to the pictures, saying 'Biff, kipper, chip', etc. It doesn't occur to DD1 that these people have names.

Yes , I think IQ is key. My boy has LD as well as autism. Whereas with my dsd, the autism is now virtually imperceptible as ahe always had a normal Iq.

I think understanding the extent of LD is crucial (though ds1 seems to have opposite problem in that names are easy for him but the more general idea of male and female children can be more tricky whereas ds2 seemed to pick this idea up with baby milk!) and I agree that TEACCH does seem to be a means of channelling torpor and ineffectiveness - to such an extent that I have met teachers who honestly think PECS and TEACCH is the same thing - presumably thinking 'they tend to like pictures don't they?' I have also met TEACCH teachers who don't know the TEACCH program has no full time director since GB resigned - this is because they don't follow or participate in any debates about SN education - but I am speaking here about TEACCH teachers I have met and am willing to believe there are better ones (somewhere ?) If TEACCH is to work, it needs to be picked up and worked with by someone with an enquiring mind and active desire to help children learn - this approach does seem a lot more common in ABA tutors/teachers which is why parents tend to like ABA

Justa Sun 40:45:04

DS gets anxious if he doesn't know what the symbols mean, and he doesn't if no-one teaches to him.

Lougle My ds made progress in academic skills 4 times the rate of his peers and social communication skills between 1 times and 1.5 times. I'm lucky. The hard work that it takes (and it does take HARD work) is rewarding for the adults who work with him because his development is fast enough to see. It makes it easier and more rewarding to work with him in this way I have no doubt.

However, I do not think that ABA type methodology is just for those with high IQ (as it happens the EP could not assess ds' IQ because after 6 months in nursery ds had lost his compliance and when it was insisted he did something he urinated instead). It is designed to get the optimal progress irrelevant of pace or starting level.

Now this ideal isn't actually possible in real life because tutors come and go, hypothesies need to be tested and they are tested quickly and we move on, but hypothesies are partly devised from intuition when the data isn't there. Then you collect data and it give you a direction, but still there is room within the ABA model for inefficiencies and poor teaching. The thing that is crucial though is that it is a model that produceds EVIDENCE and as such is accountable and open to scrutiny by others which means decisions have to be justified.

No. Because 1) I have banned them so they only do it in secret and wouldn't give me symbols that they are pretending they don't use and 2) In HIS case I would rather they discussed with me the problem that they believe needs a solution because in many cases it either 'isn't' a problem or it has a cheaper, quicker and easier solution.

And finally, no, because ds has now been taken out of nursery to spend two weeks with me and museums before they get loud and scary. The London Transport museum today was ace and free to under 5s and free to carers. So I bought him a London Underground map for his wall instead Brilliant!

sickofsocalledexperts

Two things, there are those who are born visual spatial-learners, right brain dominant, and left handed, who natural preferred learning style is to think in pictures.
Then there are those who have information processing disorders such as APD who are either natural visual-spatial learners or have to learn to become visual learners to work around their cognitive information deficit.
So in my family, all five have a clinical diagnosis of APD, three have had to develop how to learn visually and or kineasthetically to compensate, and me and our youngest DS are boht natural visual-Spatial learners and have the natural coping strategies for our information processing disability.

Autism is only diagnosed on criterai based on observed behaviour, not on any clincical diagnosis of a specific information processing disorder, and has been describes as a spectrum of disorders. And one of these disorders which can contribute to this spectrum of disorders is Auditory Processing Disorder, and another is Scotopic Sensitivity.
So may be after a diagnosis of autism based on behaviour, you should inverstigate the information processing disorders etc and the lack of understanding of them which trigger this type of behaviour.

moondog

"Visual learner gets on my proverbials too"

ignorance is bliss when you can assume that everyone thinks like you.

And you are supposed to be a professional in this area.
No wonders our support system is in such a mess.

working9while5

Not being a VSL but a ASL youmay have problems following some of my web pages lol have a look (not the content more the design)
dolfrog4life.homestead.com/AA_index_ZZ.html
dolfrog4life.homestead.com/CAPD.html
dolfrogslinks.homestead.com/Dyslexia.html

dolfrog,you simply cannot make the generalisations that you do.

I am glad you have found the learning style that works for you and your family.

I am left handed (very much so) and right brain dominant, and could not be any further from a natural "thinking in pictures" person.

very often, what works for one does not work for another.

I am no stranger to visual aids. dd1 does enjoy working with visuals, but it is not her only working and learning style. indeed, i outlined earlier how she loved photos and working with them to learn vocabulary (she no longer needs ot do this, btw - her reliance on visuals at that point was because she needed a narrowed field to choose form - showing her the table and saying "table" didn't work - she got too confused with what it coudl possibly mean. a photo worked for her at that itme, due to lack of language and ability to reference int he wider world).

but she could not possibly begin to understand how her then school were using visuals because they were using them in such a haphazard, arbitrary way, and hoping that repetition would be the key to her understanding the several steps they incorporated into each aid.

my point was that the could have spent the time repeated verbally the steps, and she woudl probably have been no closer to understanding, but not because she coudl not process auditory information, but because the instructions were not clear. they did not magically become clear (the way they were using them) just because they were in the form of photos.

what passes for the use of visual aids in many of the schools in this country is horrifying. muddled thinking, with no overall strategy or comprehension of why the pictures are being used, or how they shoudl be used.

likewise, what is done in the name of TEACCH in many schools in this country is equally horrifying. and nowhere near what it should be. when I pour scorn on TEACCH ideas, it is TEACCH as used in the majority of schools that I am talking about - the shoddy, ill thought out use of a system that is so far form what it should be that it is laughable.

what is terrifying, from my perspective, is that the school sickof and I have both experienced are thought of as experts in their field. they do outreach to schools across several boroughs. they are the preferred pre-school option in my LEA - they regularly get named on statements, and then the children feed through to the other schools in their group. they claim a 80% success rate, which, going by the year dd1 spent there (spanning two academic years, and experiencing 3 different classes) is far from realistic given how many disgruntled parents I came across (who were not all ABAers, as I said before). and there is no actual data on what constitutes "success"

this is the school that said to us that we woudl have to accept that dd1 may never talk at school or in unfamiliar situations (which was odd, as she never had that problem when with us!) - sickof has met my dd1, and the very idea is risible. dd1 wandered through into sickof's house, made herself very at home, and played happily with her ds and dd all afternoon, chatting merrily away and never once silent. any system (and remember, this school claim to be TEACCH experts) which blames the child for deficiencies in learning is a crap system.

if my dd hasn't learnt anything, it is because she hasn't been taught. not because she is incapable of learning. she has learning difficulties - the extent of which we do not know. but she is certainly capable of learning. to write off a 4 year old after less than a year of knowing her, and claim that everythign possible has been done is ludicrous (and this was a situation where there was a SALT present in each class of 10 children, permanently. and they could not get my sociable and chatty child to say a single word)

to ask parents in that situation to accept that their child will never learn something which they know their child is capable of is just disgusting. I am forever glad that dh and I had the strength to resist what they were tellign us (remember, they are experts, highly thought of, widely recognised and lauded) - I suspect that many parents don't. and that thought terrifies me.

Star, can I show a little curiosity? Where do you get your base data to show that your DS can learn at a rate of 4x/1.5x his peers? What group have you chosen for that comparison?

Dolfrog, you are clearly very passionate. I also see that you are fighting the corner for 'visuals', but I have to say this:

If I could have even an hour of Moondog's time assessing my child, and advising on a small step for success, I'd eat my own arm.

Siilverfrog..where do I start. Your DD is having a Gold Service education. She really is. An ABA school with what is it, 3 pupils in the entire school??

I am fighting for education, I have to accept that there are some provisions that cost a huge amount comparatively than others. I personally like to have a wide view, and look at how we can improve education for all children with SEN, not just a handful.

Realistically, the education package your DD receives, is not going to be available for all for whom it would be optimal, let alone all who need it.

Could every child learn more if they were in a school where the grounds were huge, the environment rich and the pupil base low? Of course. I mean, having those staff concentrating on just 3 children - you can tailor that curriculum down right to what toilet paper you use.

I accept that DD1's education isn't perfect. And, I accept that while there are parts of the day which are exactly matched to DD1's needs, there are other parts of the day which benefit other children, but DD1 doesn't need. I like to think that this teaches DD1 patience and allows her to consolidate some weaker 'life-skills' like turn-taking or waiting, or tolerance of others.

DD1 would learn 'more' if she were exposed to an intense, perfectly tailored, highly scrutinised curriculum. Could she learn 'better'? Mmm...not so sure. I think she needs the slack to allow her brain to catch up.

"if my dd hasn't learnt anything, it is because she hasn't been taught."

See, on one level, I get this. Obviously to learn you have to be taught. But it seems to miss out the fundamental stage of 'readiness'. If you try to teach advanced maths to a child who is just learning number bonds to 10, will they not learn it because they haven't been taught, or because they aren't 'ready'?

DD1 is not incapable of learning, certainly not. But before she can learn her alphabet, she has to be able to sit, listen, attend, and concentrate. Or perhaps not sit, depending on teaching style, but certainly to attend and concentrate. She isn't there yet (she is 5.7).

lougle, with respect, I disagree.

dd1 is not receiving a gold star education.

she is receiving the only education that has shown it works (for her, not talking general statistics here)

it does nt, btw, cost anymore than the shit service the LA want to put her in. not once you factor in all the "extra" cpsts she would need (and I would ensure she got) like quantified SALT, OT, proper trained support etc.

there is plenty that is wrong with dd1's education. nothing is perfect, and I am not chasing perfection. her school is very good at what it does, but it has it's limitations - there being only 3 pupils clearly being one of them!

the grounds are not huge, btw - please do not let oyur prejudices create fantasies here. it is a tiny place, in someone's own home. there is no playground, little outdoor space, no space for art/craft lessons (they take place in her classroom, which has no water/place ot clear up - this brings issues, obviously)

I am chasing education for all too.

try looking at the costings properly. not what the LA claims your dd's SN school place costs, but what it actually does cost once all the porfessional's time, running costs etc are factored in. there is little difference.

I want every child to have the chance at an education which enables them to learn to the best of their abilities (whether in an ABA school or not)

compare dd1's fees now with the shit TEACCH provision she was in- the provision that provides outreach and training to half the SN placements in the South East - and again, there is not much in it once all costs are factored in.

I do not know how you have the nerve ot suggest that you, arguing that your experience of TEACCH (which has been good, and as I said beofre, you are lucky in that) are somehow arguing more selflessly for better provision for all, whereas I am selfishly chasing gold standard provision for my dd and hang the rest. honestly.

I do not understand why you feel so hounded whenever this subject comes up.

there are more people posting here with crappy expereinces of TEACCH than there are who have had good ones. and, as I have said several times now, this is not the fault of TEACCH, but the way it is diluted and poorly delivered in most provisions in this country.

you are the lucky one here. you are the one who got a great place for your dd with little argument. you have not moved house, area and county several times just so that your child can hav a chance at what is supposed to be a given - a basic education which expects her to learn.

you are not the one who has been ignored, and thought of as delusional when you dare to suggest your child can talk/learn/count/read/be toilet trained/participate in class. it is not your child who was consigned to never talking, let alone reading or enjoying life at all on any level (they thought it was fine that dd1 switched off completely; she was virtually catatonic when there. her LA EP report states that in 3 hours, her expression did not change at all, her gaze barely lifted formthe floor - and this was somethign I was supposed to accept as "normal" for school - I was supposed to accept she woudl spend the next 12 years of school doing this).

the LA wanted to send her on to the follow on school form her ASD pre-school. the whole lot of them wer eready to write her off as totally incapable of learning, at the age of 4.

that is what I fight against.

and I have fought against it for more than just my child.

btw, the education package my child receives is "just" a place at a school. that is all. her statement says nothing else - no specification or quantification. no outside SALT, OT. nothing. no music teaching, no sensory provision. it is all provided by her school. which in turn, is "just" a school set up and run by a mum. with no formal training. with 3 tutors who all started out with no formal training. it is hand to mouth and barely scraping by. and we all (the tutors, and the parents) spend hours of our time either doign up the school/the garden/researching the next educational move. it is not the fantasy ideal school you think it is.

all of the children there (there are 3 currently, but there have been children previosuly who have moved on)have far exceeded the expectations of the LA and previous schools. all done with no formal experience in education, and virtually nothign by way of buildings.

lastly, I cannot even begin to imagine what you mean by "DD1 would learn 'more' if she were exposed to an intense, perfectly tailored, highly scrutinised curriculum. Could she learn 'better'? Mmm...not so sure. I think she needs the slack to allow her brain to catch up."

dd1 has learnign difficulties. I do not know where she will end up eventually. we are very much one day at a time. if you are implying that ABA is pressured, with no space given for the child to just "be", then you are very much mistaken. but then you have been speaking from a mistaken pov where ABA is concerned all along.

Lougle It was data taken from a variety of sources. It is a crude measurement for certain but it said pretty much the same thing whichever curriculum/assessment was used.

So on the Independent EP assessments taken before and after 6 ,months of ABA programme (mainly vineland), and the SALT assessments (can't remember off hand) in the same timeframe. Then I did the same with the following curriculums: VB-Mapp, ESDM, Something from Leceister County Council (I can look up if you like), our Local Authority's own development assessment for SN and the EYFS programme and a couple of others from some social skills books. Most have skills corresponding to the appoximate age that a typically developing child would have mastered them by. It IS crude and open to all kinds of interpretation most probably which is why I got hold of as many baselines as I could.

I was told I had more evidence than my Legal Advocate had ever seen and I think that probably the remarkable progress that ds had made was not believed and put down to him simply being bright.

I have mapped him on those tools once again and in some he has kept where he was in relation to his peers when he started Nursery, which is good if it wasn't so low to start with, but in others he has declined. Thankfully though it is mainly in relation to his peers only rather than actually gone backwards, although his behaviour has definately gone backwards considerably.

Lougle If you are interested I am happy to email you some of the charts we have made or even some of the assessments/curriulum (although I'd have to scan them in). They are good if nothing else to give you some ideas as next steps to work on.

but why would anyone be teaching advanced maths (or the alphabet) to a child that isn't ready to learn?!

dd1 is nearly 7.

she is nowhere near her peers, in anyhting.

in some areas, she is working at P4/5 still.

but in others, she is excelling - she has over the last few months taught herself to tell the time; she is using ever more advanced and complex language (she has always been very verbal);

what her school does do very well is teach each and every subject at the level that is appropriate for her. but then I would expect an school to do that.

maybe I just have very high expectations of education as a whole. I would expect dd2's ms school to teach her according to her strengths and weaknesses too. she is far better at maths than english, currently (although she is not behind in english, jsut not as far ahead, iyswim)

if she spends next year learning how ot recognise numbers/shapes/bonds up to 10 then I will be on their case too. she does that already - and I expect her school to be teaching her something.

I just odn't think that a child shoudl be written off as not able to achieve anyhting/not have anyhting expected of them purely because they are in a SN school. and that has been my experience so far with dd1, in several different authorites and numerous schools.

When I went to a conference on this recently, there were teachers from state maintained Special Schools who presented their own model of ABA in their classrooms and declared it to cost less than the provision in place previously, as, in particular, it took less time to teach something when the learning was optimal.

I'm not sure if you're up to date with my battles Lougle but I am currently trying to get a tutor with a Masters degree to be ds' 1:1 and a Qualified Teacher with a specialism in Autism in the Early Years to visit fortnightly to set up, advise as monitor his learning programme, with a focus on social skill development, functional communication and skills to prepare him for the next year. This 'package' overall costs less than the Local Authority model but they are forcing us to tribunal for it because of the £2k that I am asking them to pay ds' specialist teacher instead of the £3k they want to pay their own.

ABA is expensive, but that is because of the culture and climate that it exists in. It is expensive because parents are chosing intensive home programmes because it is nigh impossible to GET it into school no matter how much cheaper and better it would be. Once you hand your child over to the state to educate you are handing them over to the predjudices and even, in ds' case, the drive to 'undo that robotic ABA stuff he's done previously and let him be a kid'.

For most of us it is an expensive intensive home-programme versus failure. The intense thing is important because there is only so long you can have some control over the child's learning for either financial or legal reasons and you have to stick them somewhere where they are very likely to be failed, so you need to get as much ahead of the game whilst you have a chance.

ABA would NOT be expensive if it was run of the mill provision which it could be, and in some, very very few LA's it is. And finally, the learning that happens as a result of ABA enables huge savings in support services during the latter stages of the child's education, not to mention social care services.

A year ago, based on the progress that ds was making, our EP suggested that by age 6, ds would not need any exclusive 1:1. His latest EP has suggested on the basis of his now lack of progress and behaviour decline, that he needs 20 hours and this would need to be increased to full time yr1 (age 6).

'DD1 is not incapable of learning, certainly not. But before she can learn her alphabet, she has to be able to sit, listen, attend, and concentrate. Or perhaps not sit, depending on teaching style, but certainly to attend and concentrate. She isn't there yet (she is 5.7).'

Absolutely Lougle and on a good ABA programe, sitting, listening and attending come way before any academic stuff. Oddly though, some of the academic stuff is reinforcing to children with ASD so for example, if ds can try really hard to eat his yoghurt without smearing it all over the table than he gets to write a sentence .

Thanks Star.

Silverfrog, you sound so angry. I have not described your DD's school out of prejudice. I described it, based on my recollection of posts you have made. Obviously getting the wrong impression.

I won't go through all of your past posts to show where I got the impression that the school is how I thought, but here is one quote:

silverfrog Mon 20-Sep-10 18:32:05
"anyway. at school, dd1 has been undergoing a desensitisation programme, mostly with dogs and horses (both are present at her school)"

Maybe where you live, houses come with enough land for dogs and horses, but I live in a shoebox, so it didn't occur to me that you were talking about a house.

I am not trying to imply that you have been selfish. But I am pointing out that the provision of a 3 pupil school is expensive. It is. And what you would consider to be vital, is the subject of many a tribunal.

Again, I am not trying to imply that ABA is pressurised with no room to 'be'. But equally, whatever the 'down time', ABA involves intensive learning at some stage. DD1 isn't in a place where her concentration can take that. Could it improve with ABA? Possibly. I think her environment is a huge factor, as she has severe Sensory Processing Diffficulties.

I don't know...you obviously feel that I am ABA bashing, I'm not. But I'm not on trial, and I won't 'prove' myself. It's interesting that you see fit to judge how much I may or may not know about ABA though.

Star..if only DD1 could write a sentence

Silverfrog, the example I was giving was intended to say, that if a child isn't ready, then no amount of excellent teaching is going to teach them, so that is where, for me, the argument of 'if a child hasn't learned, they haven't been taught' is confusing. It implies the teaching is at fault, rather than the child. But perhaps instead, it is a case of 'a goal too far' rather than 'poor teaching'.

Maybe I have hideously low expectations. Who knows. Wouldn't be the first time I've doubted my parenting. But I do know that I'd rather DD1 could cope in a large gathering or even a small one over learning to read and write.

She is just recognising the initial letter of her name. Come on! She is 5.7 and can recognise the initial letter of her name, and thinks that every word starting with that letter is her name.