Speech and language base or Brilliant small mainstream-help??

[sade1234]

Hi guys I am sorry probably a repeat but really would love your views experiences and knowledge.

I have a 4 year boy who has verbal apraxia with receptive and expressive language delay and poss disorder. We are at the stage where we are at the final assessment for his statement and are trying to decide on which we should do. Hopefully we will have a statement!! 7 months later :)!

My little boy is currently at a great preschool to his catchment school and they have gone out of there way to help me and My son The secco is fantastic and the school really would love to have my little boy and they have stressed they will help as much as possible. They also have experience in a child just left with speech and language problems and learning disabilities that they really helped with, he has moved onto a special school. My son does not appear to have anything else after extensive reviews and watching since young, it is just communication language and speech, he is very outgoing, we'll behaved and bright and brilliant with peers.

The other choice is a speech and language base that is 30 minutes away which is a great school from what I have seen and mixes with the mainstream it is very big and my son will be the only reception intake with a few yr 1 and other mainstream children needing help. My heart is in the mainstream and it would be hopefully, from what the Ed Pys says, a 1:1 help in class.

What I am asking is is there any one that has been in this situation what did you choose and what was the outcome? My son has 2to3 word understanding and talking 2to3 words not legible sentences or phrases. How much do they come on in reception and if I don't put him in the language base will it be a disadvantage to him. he loves the preschool and is very settled. Do you find they struggle in mainstream with his diagnosis.???

I was in your position, except our daughter had a moderate receptive and profound expressive language disorder, and articulatory dyspraxia.

I'm not a speech therapist, although I have spent years in conversations with them and this is what I have heard from them. I would say one of the main questions to ask is how much speech therapy will he get in mainstream; and in the base? Has his speech therapist given you any indication how much speech therapy he needs and when?

Where we live, the language units had a 0.5 FTE speech therapist for 10 children. That meant that the speech therapist could deliver short bursts of speech therapy every day she was in, to young children, who probably only have a relatively short attention span anyway. If you mean what I understand as verbal dyspraxia, then children in the unit did used to get intensive speech therapy - which they usually need.

Often, in mainstream they use the consultative model. In practice the speech therapist may go into the mainstream school twice a term and give the staff a programme to carry out with the child. As far as I know, it does not work for verbal dyspraxia. That requires direct speech therapy from a speech therapist. Have a look at the Dyspraxia Foundation's website - they used to have a good paper by the Chief Speech Therapist at the Nuffield on this.

Like you, we lived near an excellent mainstream infant school, but my private speech therapist told us our dd was only going to cope in mainstream a term or two, she barely understood a word anybody said without visual clues; she needed to go to a language unit. We needed to get our heads round it and fight for her, because nobody else would.

We went to Tribunal and won. She was subsequently diagnosed with dyspraxia, dyslexia, profound memory problems...By the age of 8, the language unit teacher admitted her problems were so profound, nobody knew how to teach her. They agreed to a specialist speech and language school at 10.

The link for the article I mentioned:

www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Developmental_Verbal_Dyspraxia.pdf

Hi Tempe

Thanks lots for your reply can I ask how is your daughter now and has she always been in the speech unit? this is my doubts I don't see how a mainstream can give as much therapy and as much experience even if they are a fantastic mainstream. I am really glad u got the help but boy that must have been a struggle. I have been fighting for my son since he was 2 and got him referred to the Nuffeild as it was the only way I think he would of got a statement the authorities wanted to class him as speech delay, no chance I had to fight like you.

He appears to understand everything nearly and incredibly social and like your daughter doesn't fit the mould so I am unsure what the future holds. That is interesting about the intense therapy and makes sense so I think really for his sake the unit would be the best place, was your daughter happy there and how has her primary years and friendship been.

Yes, she was happy in the language unit and very proud of her school. She was always very sociable, although she tended to make friends with the ASD children, because I suspect they superficially had good language, which was easier for her to understand.

I saw several of her friends with verbal dyspraxia have good speech by the end of the infants. One is now at university. Unfortunately, she developed epilepsy at 12 and is now in specialist epilepsy provision - but speech and language provision was right for her until then.

If you are right and your son has no other difficulties, than what you would be hoping for in an ideal world, is that he could have 2 years of intensive speech therapy, which would remediate his verbal dyspraxia. He could then return to your local mainstream school for the juniors.

The question is much speech therapy can the base provide? (although the chances are that its more than mainstream). I would seek as much direct speech therapy from a speech therapist, specified in Part 3 as possible. What do the SALT reports on him say? If they say "intensive", then the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists certainly used to accept that this meant at least 3 times a week. (I'm not up to date with their pronouncements)