We have a SALT appointmet

[fairydust]

DD's appointment has finally come through for the 17th May.

So does anyone know what to expect on the first visit??

grrr sinks and doors as you know my dd has no diagnosis of ASD but is a bit auti. When we went to view the special school last week we were told before we went that the headmaster may refuse her. But dd played with the door the whole time we were being 'interviewed' by him. Needless to say he thought she would benefit from a place there

Oh boo - that doesn't sound too promising! Thanks for letting me know anway....I had a feeling that it was seeing how DH and I interact at play with DD and how to improve the communication. I just keep hoping that she will "click" before we have to go and do it. We have had one new word which she produced very loudly and clearly yesterday..."WEE WEE". We are very proud indeed!
This may be a daft question but I'll ask anyway. We are trying very hard with paring down sentences to contain only 3 words. Do we need to do this every time we speak to her or is it just for concentrated short sessions during the day? It really is quite hard to do, and I know that she can understand so much more information than a 3 word sentence can impart.

Oooer Judd, don't know. I think paring down the words is a good thing to do and it does become more natural. If you think she understands more then maybe you could use more words. Honestly though, I think I'd try to stick to less words at least for the short term, she may not understand as much as you think as sometimes they disguise it quite well by understanding context, listening to just the last words etc.

Using only really short sentences is really difficult to begin with. We did/do this for ds1. The thing to watch out for is when it becomes so natural that you don't realise you're doing it. Shop assistants tend to think you're slightly mad when you ask for more carrier bags by saying, "Bags all gone!"

We used short sentences as much as possible with ds1. We're now at the stage of using slightly longer ones but still often say the shortened version afterwards if it seems as though he hasn't understood.

Thanks for your help! Will keep on trying with the short sentences then. LOL Coppertop at the shop assistants! I know what you mean - DH and I have spoken to each other in shortened sentences (well, I have and he usually replies with "sod off".....which is fairly short!!)

We speak more or less completely naturally now to DS and he understands just about everything although he is non-verbal. We did use short sentences, key words emphasised etc, try not to end sentence with an irrelevant word etc. We also used "ABA spesk" which can go something like "good looking at me" etc which sounds really strange and I hated doing at first but...... We also use Makaton to each other when we're out, e.g. juice sign means I want more wine and we can indicate across busy table/room if we're going to the loo etc (me and DH I mean, not DS!).