Speech & language provision for pre-schoolers

[amymouse]

Hello,
Just curious to know what other people have had in terms of speech & language provision for littlies, esp around age 2-3? We are making progress, but much of DD's speech is very jumbled and hard for people to understand. Much of our translation relies on Makaton/signs left over from baby signing and generally she can only pronounce the first letter or syllable of a word. We've had SALT involved for nearly 2 years now (DD is 2y 9m) from a feeding perspective (very nice but absolutely no help) and more recently from a language point of view, who seems to take the viewpoint that there is no point doing anything until at least age 4. I appreciate she is still relatively young and her development has been very much on her terms, but I am niggling that I would quite appreciate a second opinion, either NHS or private. We've not had any actual 'help' yet so far, and started signing as thought it might come in useful and thank goodness we did as it has helped so much in understanding! Her actual understanding is excellent and appears to have no hearing problems.
Also, if I was to try a second opinion does anyone know how I go about doing that?!

You can find a local independent SLT at www.helpwithtalking.com (obviously this costs money unless you have good private health insurance) or, you can write to your head of service at the NHS SLT (phone and find out the name) and request a new therapist and another assessment. 2y 9m is young, but if she can only pronounce the first syllable sounds quite unusual (sorry) and therefore probably needs input of some sort? Does your current therapist feel the feeding and the speech issues are related at all? Has her hearing been checked?

Thanks, and don't worry about saying its unusal-I said the same thing to SALT who fobbed me off! They admitted the feeding/speech might be related (DD is now tube fed due to a dodgy swallow with fluids and never entirely learning to eat thanks to oral aversion around foods), agreed to send me some exercises to improve her muscle tone in the mouth....have I recieved anything, have I heck! We've got a meeting next week and I'm going to put it that I'm not happy with the provision we've had so far and I'd like something more especially before nursery, given that they think she'll be fine in mainstream. I'll definitely have a look at private out of interest; obvs would prefer it on the NHS but am conscious that their giving it a bit more time is going very fast!
It's frustrating because since birth we have been in touch with so many NHS services and all, apart from SLT in our area, have been exemplary.

ps. hearing has not been checked, but the level her understanding and reactions to a wide range of sounds suggests it is unlikely there is anything awry.

As you are now finding, NHS SLT provision is woefully inadequate. You will have to fight, fight fight, for provision. This is only battle number one, so gather your strength, and keep posting here! We are here, for whenever you need a boost!!!!

Hi, your daughter is the same age as mine. Mine has about 15 poorly articulated single syllable words but now has over 100 signs and is linking them. Our nhs salt provision was (I felt) inadequate and we now have a great private salt. It is not too young. I wish we had started ages ago. We are doing lots of 'cued articulation' - signing sounds in a way that shows what the mouth is doing. It is really helping,

Do you have portage in your area? If so you can self refer. They may be able to help with signing and also potentially with looking at funded support at nursery.

We have a service very similar to portage. They saw her twice and said her play skills were "beautiful" and she demonstarted an age appropriate level of cognitive processing/understanding. Which was lovely to hear but COMPLETELY glossed over her limited speech and lack of independant mobility (she has mildish cerebral palsy) which are the two things which concern me about nursery. I'll re-look at portage again. Before, given we have already seen a similar service I didn't want to tread on their toes but now I'm getting a bit fed up and would like some progress! It may well not help, but I'd prefer to push and try now. Waited and seen long enough!

Right, so dd also has lack of speech and can't walk - she crawls though. She also has a mild global delay but the speech and mobility are her biggest issues by far. We have 'band 1 funding' for one 2 one support at nursery, set up through a 'CAF' which we started with portage. Thus has also led to her getting a special more supportive chair, makaton training for her preschool team, and regular 'caf' reviews which have been really helpful - particularly in terms of us starting to think schools. It sounds like you should be able to get similar. Good luck!

My dd doesn't have cerebral palsy. We did get a genetic diagnosis yesterday - but we got the support pre diagnosis. Hope this helps.