Statement or equivalent for speech disorder?

[Lovethesea]

DS is about to turn 4 and enters Reception in September. He has been put forward to panel for a place at a local Speech Resource Base as his phonological disorder is really impacting our ability to understand him. He had glue ear which is now corrected but the temporary deafness created the phonological disorder.

The panel has now been cancelled until July and I am trying to get a plan B in place if he doesn't get a place ( they are few and the applicants many). The SALT at the local children's centre is very supportive but has limited resources. We could maybe get one session a week at school if he is mainstream.

He has had a year of weekly salt without much progress at all so I am not hugely hopeful that would compensate for missing out on a place at the SRB.

Is there any statement or IEP I can get in place that would get him more support in school with speech, the school are lovely but keep emphasising that they are not trained salts and cannot work on speech issues in the way he needs.

I am concerned that we could get to September and the weekly mainstream session could be pulled if resources are shrunk even more.

Bump

have you applied for a statement yet and if so when?

You can apply for a statement, although you wouldn't necessarily (although you might) get it before September, when the system is changing anyway.

You can request that he's assessed for a statement now, without waiting for a decision on the Speech Resource Base place.

He does not have a statement, what is replacing them?

Education, Health and Care Plans. I think you should apply for a statement now, though. We're in the middle of it at the moment (have had approval to assess so they are pulling in reports) for DD2 (who is deaf, but her speech and language difficulties are the grounds for applying for a statement).

If you get a statement before September then (as I understand it) it would transition to an EHC plan at the first annual review after that point. But there are posters here who know a lot more about it than I do.

Statements don't automatically transition to EHCPs at the first annual review. There will be a three year transition period. Therefore statements that are reasonably up to date will probably be last in the queue to be changed over.

Ok, thank you. I will search online about how to apply. I've seen IPSEA mentioned so I can start there.

Just to let you know that we got a statement for DD who started reception pretty much non verbal. We don't have speech resources in our LEA so had no choice but to make something work mainstream. We had weekly SALT and daily 2x15 min 1:1 practise sessions written into the statement. I found that IFASIC speech charity were helpful when I called them. Good luck and I hope that you get something sorted....

Thank you, I will get in touch with the charity too.

Ironically DS is very verbal, we just can't understand what he is saying as he misses bits of words and replaces letters he couldn't hear and still can't say.

The older he gets the better his vocab and we can guess the right words even less!