To what extent SALT helps your child who has speech and language disorder?

[brightbelle]

Hi all I'm wondering if anyone can share their experience here. My dd has asd and presents with quite severe speech and language disorder. She has been having SALT for almost a year and has come from non verbal to short phrases and can answer some questions now - some were taught explicitly by us (she learnt by rote) but as her vocabulary continues to expand these days she can creatively combine words. Now we are at a stage that I feel SALT is no longer that useful for her and she has recently shown she has lost interests in the activities the therapist introduced to her. It was important at the beginning as they were targeted on attention and interaction but now I think it's like we can teach her a lot more at home.

I don't know if I'm right in thinking that as her SAL issue is a 'result' of her asd that her language will develop as her attention and interaction with others develop? However, as her language remains very behind I feel like I need to continue with SALT, but to what extent she can benefit from them I'm not sure now. Should I ask the therapist to focus on articulation maybe?

I would love to hear experience from parents whose children are/have been/were in a similar situation and if they discontinue with SALT at some point.

Many thanks!

We did do that zzzzz but DS was very aware that they were younger and didn't enjoy being around them. He seems to like older kids and adults.

Oh no zzzzz I know you must be doing loads with your DC's ! I've read your other threads a while ago and know how much you do. Just wanted to point even though there's some doubts about the effectiveness of SLT, it shouldn't stop the parent seeking out, trying out the interventions and so forth .

Though, by going to these therapy sessions, DS has started to make friends by children his age but are developmentally similar to each other. Also, as a parent, I can make friends with the other parents as a matter of fact I'm very close to one of the mums from DS social groups and we've arranged to take the DC's out somewhere during the Christmas break.

I'm not sure about other social groups. But the one DS goes to only take a small number of children and it's the same group of children he would see ongoing.

What's going on with my grammar today

My DS does Lego therapy through NAS monthly. That's been great for him as it teaches the turn taking and effective communication based around a task! I just think all chances or communication and all exchanges are learning opportunities.

I think the biggest thing I would advise is to model it for the child but encourage them to have a go by themselves. Ds will often look to me to communicate for him - so I ask him to communicate what he wants to say, then model the correct way to make that request by doing it for him.

I ignore everyone who says I shouldn't communicate on his behalf - I don't - I communicate what he's ask d me to whilst he's learning to do it himself. And it clearly works because he is starting to use learnt phrases to get his point across.