Severe specific speech and language impairment

[Gorta]

Hi,
I have a ds who was diagnosed last year aged 4 with severe SLI. His receptive score levels were very low. The celf 4 score was 63 in receptive language he was in the first nd second percentiles but much higher in expressive language. I have been very lucky as he is starting in a language class in September. He has been receiving speech and language therapy since he was 18 months. He is currently attending early intervention services who I have found useless but at his last appointment his SLT told me that after a year in the language class she would not expect an improvement in his score. He will be retested next year but because he is so far behind she would not expect his score to improve very much. I am really upset by this news and I don't believe her. I think with intensive intervention he should make gains. Now I know there is no cure and he will always need support but she told me not to be surprised if he was still in the severe level as a teenager.

Has any any experience with there child?

Sorry to hear this Gorta. I don't have experience, but bumping for you.

Hi

Thank you so much for your replies. This SLT told me for nearly two years he was doing fine and making progress. I so regret not taking him privately. I asked for an assessment and then it was like whoops! He performs so well in clinic. Well there is no going back but I thought early intervention was his golden ticket and he would get the best support. Since January I have been bringing him privately to an excellent SLT and OT. I have n appointment every fortnight and I work with him everyday at home with cueing and modelling. There is so much to do with him I would be lost only for the guidance of these professionals. I need specific targets to work on eg teaching him big,bigger, biggest and working on categories. Otherwise I find myself trying to do too much with him whereas it is better to work on specific areas nd build it up.

Well done you pipinjo!! It's experiences like yours I need at the moment. You have had phenomenal success. I have read up on verbal aba techniques and I'll ask slt at next appointment. I really agree with you about having the right input.

Thanks for replies

DD is 5.5 and has severe language disorder, she scored 1st centile for receptive and expressive language- I went for private assessment when she was four and was told she was likely to always struggle due to the severity but that there are ways of helping her function-reminder cards on a keyfob that kind of thing.

I feel she has made so much progress but then she is still 1st centile a year and a half on-as people pointed out to me on here though that actually IS progress as she is 1st centile for a 5.5 year old now not a 4 year old as she was then.

I would love to know what the future holds for her and find the hope almost painful some days-today she has been "singing" in her own way and also she is brilliant at card games like memory, her cognitive ability with non verbal stuff is great, so she won a game of memory cards against me and DH yesterday fair and square. I am trying to think of more stuff like that to build her confidence and am hoping to get funding for an IPAD.

I think its brilliant about te language class-we don't have one here so DD is in mainstream with one to one support which depending on the day I feel ok or not with!

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. It's not that I'm giving up hope its just to understand what is ahead rather than have unrealistic expectations. I have two older girls who were diagnosed moderate/ severe receptive language delay at 3 like my ds but my eldest dd resolved before starting school. Our second dd was slow to make progress and she was diagnosed with dyspraxia and spd at 5 but her receptive language has really come on and she scored 96 in the celf 4 assessment aged 8. I accept it won't be as easy with my ds. He had a cognitive assessment to be eligible for the language class and his non verbal ability is very good. Zzz it's fantastic your son is reading, it's dyslexia and literacy difficulties that can come with SLI I'm worried about. My ds has spd and fine motor difficulties as well. I'm typing this on an iPad, I use lots of different apps including language builder. I have language for thinking ( speech mark). Have you used talkability or language for learning?. Usedtobethin thank you for telling me your story. Are you getting slt?

Yes gorta she has had SALT since two, she had three times a week theraapy for a while including group work and the SALT said she thought she would "be ok". In retrospect I was too reassured by this and it took me a while of thinking DD's issues were hearing related (she does have glue ear too) before I accepted a paed referral when she was three. She now has one to one support in school and the TA does most of the SALT, with a SALT over seeing the programme and a speech and lang technical assistant visiting an hour a week.

The speech sounds bit actually limits her a huge amount do you find the same? dd is really difficult to understand, her clarity of speech has improved but not massively despite a lot of work.

Dd loves numbers and is now writing her name well but struggles with fine motor too, and has sensory processing isues so has OT too at school.

Hi Gorta - my ds (5.5yo) also has a severe language disorder (his is associated with ASD). In the last 2+ years he has had 4 CELFs done (first the preschool CELF & now the 5+ one) at 6 monthly intervals.

1st test - un-testable, he could not do anything at all
2nd test - receptive 0.1st & 0.2nd centiles, expressive 1st & 2nd centiles
3rd test - receptive 1st & 2nd centiles, expressive 9th & 18th centiles
4th test (3 months ago, this was the first time he has been tested on the 5+ CELF test) - receptive 9th centile, expressive 32nd. (sorry can't remember the subtests)

He has just had a test of comprehension where he tested ahead of his peers (as he does in picture & vocabulary tests) though his language is still disordered & he has problems with some very basic elements (pronouns, some prepositions, sequencing etc).

He made considerable progress between the tests & he was very severe (entirely mute at 3 years old with no receptive language at all).

We did ABA at home for 2 years - nowhere near full time probably averaging about 10 hours (or fewer) a week (& we had to work on lots of different delays not just the language issues though they were our primary concern). We did only naturalistic teaching with masses of opportunities & reinforcement for ds to speak. tbh SALT has never actually done anything - we just use her for assessments. As well as the ABA we've used More Than Words, with lots of sign (Signalong) support & some visuals. We're using Language for Thinking atm & Sentence Builder & Question Builder on the ipad. Starting to learn to read is helping with some of his grammar issues but we have a very long way to go.

I guess I'm saying that there can be masses of good progress, but the problems won't magically get better - I can't imagine ds ever having typical language - and it will take enormous work & you are going to have to do an awful of that yourself.

Hi,
Thank you for all the great replies. It has really cheered me up I was just so upset to think he will struggle so much as he is such a great happy little boy. I suppose I feel guilty too as I really wanted a third child and I knew he could have language difficulties like our other two daughters did. I knew when he was 9 months old he had receptive issues as he wasnt able to wave and respond as a child his age would. I am living in Ireland and I thought when he went into early intervention services he would have his needs meet. Unfortunately through lack of funding there is no services being given.
If I had been told he is not progressing rather than always being told he was fine. I would have gone down the private route earlier. Usedtobethin my son was only getting one session of slt per month. In the language class he will get three hours one to one and group sessions. It will make a huge difference. I am bringing him privately and working with him at home all the time. He doesn't have difficulty with his speech sounds its his receptive language which is very low but I gather he has problems with word retrevial, processing speed and working memory. I need to help him with his listening skills and concentration. Your dd having one to one at school will be a great help especially following a Slt programme.
Bdaonion,
I'm am so grateful to have gotten a place in a language unit as over here regardless of the SLI one is offered 8 sessions of slt publically per year. I would have also gotten 4 hour resource per week in school. If my ds score does increase he will go into mainstream with no support or resource. I am hoping he will get another year.
Sabelhp thank you for all the information. I did not know he could be retested so soon. It is something to keep in mind for th private slt. I do use all the aba apps with him and find them fantastic. I used more than words with him for 18 months and found it a great resource. Talkability is th next book on from that. I haven't gotten it yet. Language for thinking is too advanced for him yet. I'm using the cueing and modelling hierarchy with him. He is making progress and I really dont mind doing the work involved. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with me.

hiya, my dd is 10, 11 in july, she has been dx with very severe SLI and no short term memory, at current my dd is not even on the percentile when she had her review at the begining of the yr she was scoring on the 0.1st percentile, my dd doesnt have a language unit but has been statemented for over a year now, her current school is a total waste of space and no progress has been made now in nearly 2 yr, I have found that by being very persistant and basically a pest to the system they have now (after 4yrs) sort of starting to listen, I have loads of issues with my dd still yet to cover, but the 1 thing we have found that works wonders for confidance, self asteem ect is her love of the outdoors, where she can play and join in in things that dont involve any school work or written. im at a stage atm where aslong as she is happy it makes our life a little bit easier untill i can get her into a school that can fully meet her needs.