NHS salt: "Lanfuage dor Rhinking" programme is of no value

[oodlesofdoodles]

DS has recently been assigned a new Salt. I've been going on and on at the salt dept asking for something, anything, eg language for thinking for ds or Hanen Talkability for ua.

The salt went to assess ds at pre school last week and reported that he's doing fine, he just needs ro work on non verbal communication (i had put that in one of my emails to salt dept) and collaborative play. (You don't say lady!) No actual recommendations of how to go about this.

She tested ds on Language for Thinking and decreed that he doesn't need it. We have the manual at home and ds can scrape through the first column, might gwt some of the second column and is a long way off third column questions.

To cap it all she accosted me outside school in front of another parent. I'm not keen to have ds's shortcomings advertised like this.

So this is really a question for moondog, is there ant value in Language for Thinking.

(also a but of a rant)

Oh dear, mega typos on my phone!

Ask her wtf she is talking about.

Although ds's SALT(s) are fond of declaring there is no value in ABA so there are plenty of uninformed SALTs out there.

Her actual words were that it doesn't teach social skills. Dumb ass. ABA doesn't teach anything. It's a methodology and you can use it to teach anything you like including Social Skills.

If he's at pre school he will be at the bottom of the age bracket for talkability. The criteria ages are 4-7, taking 4 conversational turns.
Fwiw I like language for thinking but again he may be a bit young ESP for 3rd column. Ask about social use of language groups.

Very interested to read about other peoples views on this as DS salt has just recommended that school use this and I was about to buy it. To help with DS verbal reasoning skills? She said it will help promote his inference, , verbal reasoning and thinking skills.

The only social skills suggestion was Time to Talk and small group work with peers............

Good point digbert. Ds is 5. Private school with longer nursery. But he's not fine at all, jumbled language, peculiar turns of phrase that only I understand. According to salt assessments his language is v.g. but that's because he parrots his parents.

Coffee, LfT is all about prediction, inference and two people having a different PoV.

Anyway, do I have grounds for yet another complaint or am I muddled about this?

Really?
On what grounds I wonder.
It's one of the most useful, user friendly and measurable interventions I have come across in 16 years and it ties in beautifully with ELKLAN which is the flavour of the month with s/lt at present.

Ask for his assessment score and language level.
Ask for a copy of the assessment itself.

He may too young for 'the third column' as you put it, Digbert but that is irrelevant.
LFT is designed for use at three differnt language levels across three different conditions (ie picture and talk text and talk text only)

Perhaps she doesn't realise its purpose is for one to move through these conditions in turn?

Thanks Moondog, will do. Will be back to ask your advice again.

My fear is that its cheaper/more fun for salts to waft into school and make vague recommendations than to actually provide direct therapy for children.

LFT is easy to use.
I train assistants to use it all the time.Takes about an hour max.
It's not rocket sceince.
I then oversee and monitor progress and the child moves through the levels when the continuous assessment procedure indicates they are ready to do so.

it is difficult for an NHS s/lt to personally work with the children on her caseload (in my case there are well over a 100) but that does not preclude her teaching LSAs and teachers how to implement SMART evidence based practice.

That's our job. it's what we are paid to do.

X posted Moondog.
We have only used the picture stories at home as ds doesn't read yet. And I've assumed that he couldn't cope at all with an aural story and no picture. Although maybe I underestimate him.

Start with 'Picture and Talk' always for every child. But he needs assessing (within the manual) for you to know what language level (ie what column's questions) he needs to be working on.

X post again.
Ds has got a bit fed up with LfT at home, so I was hoping someone who isn't one of his anxious parents coyld do it. But maybe we could be trained to use it better?

Ask her to show you how to use it.
I bought a copy, read it through and started using it with my own child.

It should be fun.
Wonder why it isn't for you?
Are you scoring properly?
Sticking to the appropriate column?
Do yoyu even know what column you shoudl be working on.

We start on the first column and work our way across. I guess ds feels that its yet another test and we get frustrated at his strange answers. Eg the one where the boy is about to run into his teacher. "what's going to happen next ds?" "the snake [mural] is going to eat the boy."

I have it. I've read it. I like it.

But I haven't used it. Not sure why

I think I felt DS wasn't yet up to it. Could that be a reason?

What, you are working your way across the columns in one session??
Nooooooooo.
No wonder he doesn't like it.
That's not how it is meant to be used.
Oh dear.

You haven't tried to assess him yourself then as that will tell you what column you need to be working on for at least 10 of the exercises?

Not sure how to score so haven't.

Yes starlight, you dont want to put them off a great resource by introducing it too early or making a pigs ear of it.

(blush)

The manual is a little confusing I have found but I read it and pull together all the key bits for LSAs so that they don't have to.

If you aren't using it properly, it won't be of much use.Sounds like you aren't unfortunately.

I mean
Moondog should we just be going down column 1 then?

Sounds like it but YOU WILL ONLY KNOW THIS BY DOING THE ASSESSMENT WHICH TELLS YOU ON WHAT COLUMN TO WORK.

Right ladies, I'm orf. I've spent the entire day at this computer and my kids need their nightly dose of Laura Ingalls Wilder as do all of us. We love it.

Thanks Moondog

I was only quoting the OP on her turn of phrase "3rd column".
OP- try taking the general principles of language for thinking and try to apply to situations in your day as they happen.
So you see a child looking happy and holding an ice cream... "wonder why she is happy?" etc
At 5 I would imagine column 1 would be enough.. Do the assessment and see wher you should be working...