Should I force my son to continue NHS SALT?

[HuntIdeas]

Hi

So my son has verbal dyspraxia. He sees a private SALT weekly

Occasionally he will get a block of 6 NHS sessions. He is half way through an NHS block and has been seeing the private therapist every other week at the same time

The problem is that he has told me he doesn’t like the NHS therapist and doesn’t want to see her anymore. I also don’t think she is helping much as she doesn’t know him very well and has been pushing him to try and make sounds he isn’t capable of

My issue is that if I stop doing the NHS therapy then they will take him off the books, which could impact the support he gets when he starts school in September

So, do I force him to go for the last 3 sessions and risk putting him off speech therapy? Or do I cancel these sessions and risk being signed off the books?

I’m thinking about calling in sick for 2 of the sessions and just hoping they forgot to rearrange....

So he is pre school age?

In that case I wouldn’t be giving him any say in which appointments he goes to! If he needs the therapy and needs to stay on the nhs list then he has to attend the appointments

I'd try to stay on the NHS books if at all possible - it's going to be a hell of a lot easier him starting school with recurrent speech therapy blocks in place than trying to get back into the system or taken seriously when it comes to provision planning without it.

I do feel for your son though - the NHS SALT we got allocated for DD2 (verbal dyspraxia and also a language disorder) was absolutely awful, really didn't want to be there and was openly snarling at me "well whadya expect me to do 'bout it" when I listed the sounds and language problems she had issues with. In the end she glowered through about 3 of our sessions before shoving us some photocopied worksheets in my hand and telling us she wasn't going to bother to see DD2 again because she could understand what people were telling her!

We see a private therapist once a fortnight (can't afford any more than this unfortunately) - and I do have a few battles with school who don't see it as as "important" to keep up with what she says as they would do with an NHS one.

Oh and then our NHS report (when it finally came months later)... one fucking line of text!

I'd grit teeth and promise Haribo or whatever after each of the remaining sessions.