SALT appointment - speech delay confirmed

[Whitefluffyclouds]

Hi everyone
I hope it's ok to post on here. My DS is nearly 15 months and I have posted a few times on the behaviour/development board. We have been concerned about his social/communication development for quite a while as he has been quite behind in this area. Eg. at 12 months, he had no pointing, no clapping or waving, showed us no affection, didn't reach out to be picked up.

In the last couple of months, he has made loads of progress and now claps and waves, gives us cuddles, reaches to be picked up. He has just recently sort of started pointing at things he wants (sometimes with whole hand, sometimes with a sort of loose index finger point - index finger is extended although the other fingers aren't fully curled round) and sometimes will sort of point at things when in the buggy. Generally he is pretty sociable, loves meeting new people.

However, he is still pretty behind with his language. He doesn't say any words (I know it's still young for that) but more importantly his understanding seems pretty limited We had a private SALT appointment today (booked ages ago) and she said that he is delayed. She spent quite a while testing his receptive language/ability to follow instructions and he wasn't really able to do much, although I know he definitely does understand some words eg. dog. She didn't tell us how delayed he was or what being speech delayed really meant, and I feel a bit at sea about what this means for our DS in the longer term. She is going to write a program of exercises for him but we opted not to have a report as it would cost more. I'm now wondering if we should ask for a report just to get a bit more explanation?

I don't really know what to do now. I've already been trying to implement ideas from It Takes Two to Talk already but I don't think I'm a very good therapist. DS has a very short attention span and often gets distracted half way through an exercise/game.

Sorry this post is so long and thank you if you are still reading. If anyone has any experiences or advice to share I would be very grateful!

Hi and welcome to the board. In terms of what this means for your DS in the longer term, it is very hard to "call" indeed with such a young child, though it sounds like he has some good skills already, albeit with a degree of receptive language delay. I would ask outright how delayed he is, so you have a starting point iyswim to measure progress from. Because of his age, a report isn't likely to be v informative about long term prognosis btw, but it may be worth getting a report anyway if it doesn't cost too much more, to be sure of whether SALT has picked up the same areas of strength and weakness as you have. The fact that you are so on the ball and are getting help in at such a young age will be a great benefit to your DS.

In terms of short attention span etc, keep plugging away at it, following your child's interests, and try and work the Hanen stuff into the bogstandard daily activities - eating/washing/tooth brush/dressing etc.

Have you had his hearing checked recently? Would get this checked out in case it is something like glue ear...

Thanks both. TheLightPassenger - have now asked for a report, as I do think it'll be helpful and will also give us a kind of baseline I think to measure any improvements against. Re. the Hanen stuff, I guess it's a change of mindset so that every activity becomes a learning opportunity.

chocjunkie - we are down to have his hearing checked in August, although he doesn't seem to have any problems outwardly.

The Hanen stuff eventually gets ingrained. Though following your DC's interests can be a bit frustrating with a 15 month old! They really do have very short attention spans. It's a case of realising when you've lost them and refocusing on their new interest. But little and often is fine.

Thanks EllenJaneisnotmyname. Has anyone ever used ABA purely to help with speech? I've read up on it re. autism and it sounds great but I don't know whether it can ever be used specifically for speech and language.

I didn't go down the ABA route (wrongly believed you had to do a full on full time ££££ programme), but there is a particular strand of it, VB, that is focussed on teaching language. If you google Mariposa school california, they have information on VB somewhere on their website, pretty much a full manual.

also check out some of the free videos at www.littletalkers.com. Like comment vs. question, language modeling and early sounds p, b,m. Hanen is also good.

Thank you both for your helpful suggestions. We've just had the 'programme' of exercises through from the speech therapist and I'm really disappointed. She's written out only about 5 general suggestions, 4 of which we do already (eg. offering choices, commenting on what you're doing etc). I've emailed back to ask for some more specific exercises.

What should I be expecting from the therapist? We paid £125 for the session, extra for the report and I would have thought that she would provide a series of detailed exercises, specific to DS, with specific goals in mind.

I'd be interested to know what you thought. I think we might change therapists - anyone got any recommendations in SW London?

Thank you!

It's difficult for me to say re:exercises, as I was disappointed by private SALT report at first, thought the recommendations were too vague, compared to say Hanen. But looking back, they were a lot better than I thought, e.g included a core vocab of basic concepts etc, So on reconsideration it might not be as bad as at first sight. I don't live in London, but have heard good things about the London Childrens Practice, particularly Jackie Harland.

I found that by seeing a private speech therapist+getting a report it helped because up until that point I felt like the only one who thought there was a problem, the therapist said very quickly that dd has a significant+severe communication delay (age 2) but this really helped me realise I wasn't just being paranoid and to take a proactive approach +start to help dd not just rely on 'she will catch up'.
I had already bought the 'it takes 2book' so I found most of the stuff the salt recommended was in there anyway but she helped me by saying even tho most of what I was doing wasn't working at the time (ie no new words) to keep it up as it was on some level sinking in with dd, even if she wasn't saying the words, she was getting more familiar with them+would recognise them easier later on.
I started with the goal of getting dd to say 'go' as in ready, steady .... U can do that on a swing, with blowing bubbles, letting go of a balloon (rocket balloons are great) etc. It took ages (prob about 50 times) before she finally attempted it herself but once she 'got' it, that she could control what I did with her words it really helped. Say ready, steady then wait for them to say 'go', if they don't within a few seconds just say it urself and keep playing the game but eventually it worked with us and I found it to be a very good starting point for her communication skills and her wanting to speak. Hth