Quick thread - need advice - SALT at 3pm

[lougle]

DD2 had SALT assessment in June. result: General speech/language at/around average. Doesn't initiate conversation and didn't respond to non verbal cues, but school say she's ok, so it's not affecting her.
I complained by email, said concerns weren't with general language (I.e. she can name a girl if shown a picture, etc).

Now, SALT coming today to reassess and observe. She deals with SCD/ASD type stuff.

I've been invited to discuss her findings at 3pm (school finishes 3'30), so under 30 minutes to talk.

Can you lovelies think of all the areas I should highlight?

e.g. Mrs X, ELSA told DD2 she wouldn't see her today because she had a meeting. DD2 smiled with her tongue pushed behind her bottom lip, nodding as Mrs X was telling her. I know Mrs X would think she's fine with it. However, ar breakfast DD2 told me that she was only ok with going to school today because she has Mrs X this afternoon.

TIA

Lougle I know a couple of posters on here have had mixed experiences with it but a lady at a group I go to used the ads team at great ormond street I think they deal with more complex presentations of autism

ROFL claw at your ds 'not needing any SALT input' what hope is there, really?

Am so cynical about NHS SALT. Without private therapists we would have got nowhere. I would not have been able to help my dd2 without them. It is so awful to have these concerns about your child over months/years and to never, ever have them validated.

Harrumph

We're not having any salt input despite all the disorders in DS language.

Although salt did say there was not anymore than I was doing and school was doing that could be done. So we'll get ideas and things to do but not by salt iyswim?

Having said that she also said she'd be interested in meeting him again in 6months time!

Handy 'not needing any SALT input' is from an indi SALT at indi school!

She hasn't even assessed ds, her input has consisted of seeing ds for 6 weeks once a week, setting some inappropriate targets, which he easily met and telling me his language abilities are very well developed!

Sometimes inexperienced SALT's cant see past the end of their noses and you have to do their job for them.

Ds' SALT said age appropriate = discharge. Indi Salt said yes but ........ Tribunal to get SALT.

6 month review, NHS SALT said she didn't know what to do about issues, wrote vague report discharging. On questioning, her Manager wrote an update claiming intervention been successful and no longer need SALT because age appropriate.

Tribunal again with Indi SALT who spent whole day with Ds who stated Ds had severe SAL disorder outside of his ASD. 3 day assessment at SALT school agreed. Independent EP agreed.

SAL now primary need.

It's so hard isn't it?

The trouble is who do you trust?

I don't care what language DD2 can produce with visual prompts. It may surprise the SALTs to know that most of life is not spent with picture cards in front of your face!!

Why didn't they tell her a story without prompts and see if she could get to the meaning?

Why didn't they talk to me first, and then observe to see if they could see what I was going on about, before seeing DD2 on her own?

Absolutely, Lougle. Lots of unanswered questions from that assessment.

Who do you trust?

Your instinct.

I don't assume you had an easy ride with DD1.

I think you can be honest without assuming that because you had a nightmare experience, someone else is likely to as well. I find it most difficult to read optimistic posts about the hope of early recognition of complex needs that teaching staff can't see or hope that a terms intervention will fix all the problems. I really hope that it will happen for somebody else but ime it took years, referral to SS, school transfer, 5 years of documented failure resulting in his being out of school until tribunal placement. I also had a dismissive paed and combined with dismissive reports from school was refused access to further assessment and had to go private to get a dx. I'm guessing that you don't need to hear this at some points because it would be demotivating.

I feel personal animosity towards people that denied and blocked and lied. I had to watch my son suffer, lying on the floor in a foetal position and punching himself, intervene when he was threatening DH with a kitchen knife etc. This is the bit that is experienced differently - not the objective fact that your DC has a disability or coping with the day to day practical impact. I'm sorry if I am not expressing myself well.

I had the same paed initially with DS2 - she said he was just like DS1 - that he didn't have ASD and neither did DS1 and it was a 'shame' that he had a diagnosis. I complained and saw another paed. Referral to the consultant and working dx of ASD pending ADOS (consultant said she would diagnose him regardless of the result).

The school have submitted a CAST for DS2 that is overwhelmingly negative. With DS1 this was reason not to assess further. With DS2 the consultant has sent school different forms and more or less told them to complete it properly this time as history and clinic observations are highly indicative of a diagnosis of ASD. Ironically, I have moved in the viewpoint of the profs from seeing things that are not there with DS1 to not seeing things that are there with DS2. The consultant was leading me to answer questions in a particular way - suggesting that food issues were an example of rigidity and need for routine etc. Unbelievable difference.

Who do you trust?

A random bunch of peeps from the Internet naturally!

Oh yeah and them

You're right, Star, but of course none of you have anything to gain by seeing my DD2 diagnosed/supported and, more crucially, none of you have anything to gain by seeing her not diagnosed/supported.

I don't care if she gets an ASD dx, a SpLD dx, a 'something-not-quite-right-but-needs-support' dx, a dyspraxia dx, or any other dx.

I honestly don't care, as long as someone, somewhere, recognises that the school is tapping into about 3% of DD2 and the other 97% is either in dragonflies or thinking of dragonflies and fading into the background.

When Dragonflies stops in the next few weeks, I can almost guarantee that we'll have a return to night waking and massive anxiety.

And look - we have 5 months until the whole process starts again and she'll have to be mixed up with her peers and put in another new class, with a new curriculum (because the NC is going in September) and a new teacher who has to try and work her out again.

But it's ok, because she 'might' be able to have a few snapshots of the new classroom and she 'might' be able to meet the new teacher in advance. Whoopie doo, that'll sort her out, then!

Ime both paeds and SALT who have not already a strong suspicion of ASD will question DC at a superficial level that does not test ToM. For example, what are your friends names? rather than 'what is a friend?'. The child is tested to failure even if they pass the first level of the test.

There is outrage at being asked an incompressible question - might as well be 'how heavy is blue?' - 'how am I supposed to know'!? May be suppressed verbally in assessment but visible frustration at question not just difficultly in answering. Dd2 does this.

If someone tests to failure and she passes, fair enough, but no one has done that and so you need to focus on finding someone that can do that. Don't waste any energy doubting yourself.

You need a ASD specialist SALT, not a colleague of the ASD specialist SALT.

Just dipping into yesterday's cereal.

DS1 would say "no, I want you to make it"