can anyone comment on these social skills ideas of mine please? (moondog are you about?)

[lingle]

My DS2 (resolved receptive language, possibly resolved sensory, anxiety) is now 6 and starting Year 1, doing very well. Social issues: likes to stick to one best friend and tends to go hang out with (mutually devoted) big brother on playground at breaktime. General social anxiety still there. So I've written to head asking for a plan for the year and I've said this:

"He also still seems to blank children other than his closest friends when they ask him questions or make remarks unexpectedly. I'm wondering if teaching him a set of "neutral" responses that will buy him time might help: even just learning to say things like "oh" in response to a remark, "umm....I don't know" in response to a question and "hello" in response to a greeting (rather than the current silence or "No") would buy a bit of time for him to process/relax, and count as a reasonably appropriate response- which might in turn reduce the anxiety of these encounters. We have been talking about saying "kind" things so I think he is ready for this."

My thinking is this. There's bound to be a big anxiety element to this "blanking" because DS2 doesn't blank DS1 or his best friend but he will blank people he likes like neighbours seen out of context in the school canteen. He obviously doesn't know what to say/do. So I reckoned if we simplied the responses right down, he might discover that the social demands of 6 year olds are not as great as he thought.

It's a kind of "learn by rote to get rid of the panic" idea, hence wondering what moondog thinks.

I'll appreciate any comments/context/more grownup names for similar things or even just more examples of "one size fits all" responses to questions from children. Or anyone who has tried out strategies for the same problem.

best wishes to all.

anonandlikeit - is it possible to get the SALT working with your child to email you the reports and recommendations from each visit so that you can see what she is working on and do it at home too?

A parent I know went to the LA and wrote a request and got funding for a Narrative Intervention in the Early Years course. She said she probably got it because she stressed on how useful it is to teach strategies to parents who can then implement it at home. I went on the course and so did a lot of the NHS SALT and for the next year the SALT working with my ds was making recommendations from the course. It really helped that I knew roughly where we were going with the recommendations.

Starlight - the scripts - as usual such a brilliant idea something I should be working on. Do you mind if I ask where you get the structure and ideas from eg. how to increase complexity etc?

I'll tell you the truth, anon, I think it is a lot harder to develop a SALT programme that really is effective and utillises those linguistic analysis skills (not counting speech here)

Think about what language is. It is what mediates our thought, our relationships, our learning and often our behaviour. It transmits culture. It is also, the older we get, highly context-specific e.g. I have a very limited technical vocabulary in maths and the physical sciences, I can never remember what the verb "to tesselate" is etc, can't tell you what a "rhombus" is but that is completely okay as I don't need to know any of this. Individual vocabularies vary widely throughout life and it is absolutely normal... this is less true of physical actions and movement of large muscular groups. There is variation still, sure.. but it is a bit different. Although there may be many ways to thread a bead or pour a kettle, as long as you have a way to do the action it it doesn't much matter how you do it as long as it is efficient.

BUT

YES, actual therapy is THE key to resolving the majority of SALT service issues you al experience.

Specialist OTs do not tend to take "open door" referrals, this is part of our problem. The vast majority of clients seen by SALT are either a) "the worried well", b) have language that, while below that of peers, is developing along normal lines, c) need people to know how to scaffold their broadly normal language development. Anyone can be seen.... so everyone is...

This means that the 6% of children who will have persisting language and communication disability are vying for SALT space with, well, just about everyone else in the world. It was not always so, people used to get actual therapy ongoing. I had five children in my first year working that I saw every single week, week in and week out, making minor adjustments to the target every single week. One of them is in secondary now and still asks his current therapist about me because I was a real person in his life, not a nameless faceless stranger lecturing his mum! The skills I began to develop from working with those children, as well as the skills I learned working as an ABA person, inform everything I do. I train teachers and teaching on differentiation as part of my job and still do therapy 9-5.. but I can only train as I do because I do therapy. Yet many of my colleagues are "training" and "consulting" without actually knowing how to practically apply their skills. Writing targets in a specific way won't change this, I am afraid. It just means that people spend hours labouring over the wording of something because they don't really know where to start or what to say...

I'd agree.
We have a system where equal (if not greater) emphasis is placed on 'attending to' (I can't think of how else to put it) vast swathes of kids who have nothing wrong with them.

It bouces up contact times nicely of course for a clinic based s/lt to be able to say she had 40 fiferent contacts in a week.
But what was the purpose?

I am literally lost for words when I leanr about some of the kids my colleagues see who take up hours of time. Not the fault of the s/lt of course. She is doing what the managers tell her to do.

I believe we have to rethink s/lt in a major way and reorganise to target only the msot needy.
I also think most of s/lt input into kids with ASD is pointless and shoudl be devolved to behaviour analysts and s/lts with ABA trainig,as their language develps beyond basic mands.

I don't think the s/lt actually needs ABA training at all, Moondog. I think they could easily advise the ABA team who could devise the operational procedures.

(By that, I don't mean they don't need know about all the behavioural stuff... but not necessarily be the one to devise the entire programme/have post graduate level degrees in ABA).

thank you, I can see that SALT is a very complex subject & I guess in our case it just must be more difficult to set up actual therpay.
It cannot be a case of ahving a higher caseload as the SALT ds2 currently has works exclusively for the ASD team so all on the team should have an equal caseload, I guess not all children will need OT input or not all physio but then not all have SALT requirements either. All the children have an asd dx, are all of school age & referred by their paediatrician. So those that dont have real issues should already be weeded out.

The same for the preschool CDC, all profs provided us actual therapy but not SALT.

In fact the only actaul therapy we ahve received from a SALT was when DS2 was a baby and we received feeding support etc. She was from the general HA salt team.

I have asked the ASD team lead and she has said she will have a word with the SALT & maybe "she can get a few bits built into the SIT sessions with his OT"
Maybe i need to read & research a bit more & see what i can do to support ds2 myself whilst we wait.
It is interesting to hear it form your POV.

Thanks trying, thats the problem theya re not doing anything with him. Hes had a couple of assessments, one here at home and the second half at school.
His receptive language is OK, has slow processing time etc but actual understanding is very good.
His expressive language is delayed & discordered and for a while he was classed as selectively mute although i do not think this is the case.
He has a good vocabulary knows many complex words etc but doesnt use them and struggles to respond appropriatley to questions and requests etc & has very little conversational skills.
More importantly he struggles to ask for help etc.
He is 9 and has a dx of ASD, mild CP & learning difficulties his current OT ahs been working on his bilateral integrations and sensory anxiety.

Working and Moondog - are you saying that a salt could help my child sort out his garbled nonsensical sentences and express himself clearly? Our NHS salt pretty much discharged him after six sessions saying that she'd given him all the help he could and that she would just see him for assessments in future. Should we be looking for a private salt? How do we find a good one?

Hi Spiraling,

Ah, that sounds familiar.How old is your son? What's his story?

Have been emailing with an old mumsnet friend who has just reminded me that DS2 might have mild face-blindness (as I do). If that is the case, then we need to adjust expectations accordingly.

Does anyone know whether there is any realistic way to assess face-blindless? I imagine not as, in my case, I recognise adequately for everyday purposes when not stressed but have problems (i) with new people (ii) with people I've not seen for a while (iii) with children, because their faces keep changing/developing (iv)when I am stressed - faces kind of go blank and I can only see one feature, like hair.

Or should I just suggest that we make a working assumption that there could be some face-blindness.

lurking with interest! many thanks to working and moondog for their professional perspectives, and everyone else for asking such good questions!

in terms of face-blindness - there probably is some test on the cambridge autism research centre website - but I wouldn't bother testing - just try seeing if it makes a difference if you "introduce" the people to him - oh look that's X from your class, Y from our street.

we had a 20 minute meeting yesterday. It took nearly all that time for me and the SENCO (who was his reception teacher last year) to "introduce" him properly to the Year 1 teacher. For that reason alone it was useful.

You always forget how much foundational work there is still to do before you can get to nitty gritty don't you? The teacher really didn't know much about DS2 but now she knows a little more. She's going to do closer observation and we'll talk again in a month.

We got distracted because she thought face-blindness was the same as not being able to read facial expressions. I very much hope this is not true as I have face-blindness but can read expressions pretty well I think.

Glad you meeting should make a difference. do not think it is true, but i think reading faces take practise.

Got school run in a min. But started the process for ds when he was 2. although got interaction with us, clearly not developing as he should - more interest in wheels at softplay, and jigsaws, opening closing doors. still not much talking at 3, dx at 4 (initial dx gdd - but portage sorted that out). V much his own interest, but loves company and having fun.oh time to go laters.