Speech disorder

[Stressedoutmum3]

Hiya

I’m looking about for some advise and any previous experience regarding speech disorders.

My 4 year old is due to start reception in sept. I’ve been worried about her speech since she was 2 and constantly sent away and told not to worry. My child’s understanding was always fine. As she approached 3 and I noticed her language development was slow compared to my other children and her peers I started to get concerned. With covid and the complete lack of support around the nhs I went private. She’s had hearing test after hearing test and it’s transpired she’s been suffering on and off with glue ear since 2 although has cleared up now and he hearing is ok. The private speech therapist has been working with us for about 10 months now and we’ve seen big progress as well as having a supportive nursery who have been working with her. It seems her progress is slow and goes in fits of her improving lots then slow: she can almost demonstrate perfect sounds for her therapy but it doesn’t transpire into her day to day talking. Haven’t got an official diagnosis but nhs think it’s not motor and private says she has some attributes of verbal dyspraxia and or phonological disorder. Could be genetics or could be made worse by the lack of hearing when she was younger.
I’m very concerned about her starting in reception and making herself understood and staff being able to understand her as if you don’t know her she’s not easy to understand. I have been her communicator for so long and I get everything she says but others wouldn’t.
How should I go about getting the right support in school and also any one experienced similar with any success stories!?
I’m such an anxious person and I worry my self sick about her being picked on or not coping in school. I have a good relationship with the school and it is a a good school but I can’t see how she will ever catch up with her peers! It’s starting to become the only thing I think about and I spend hours on here looking for answers and what her future will look like. If I’m not doing that I’m blaming Myself for her issues.

Any help or success stories of how others coped in school would be gratefully received.

Thanks

Hello. This was me 12 months ago.

My little boy has a speech sound disorder and had private therapy since he was 3. He was incredibly difficult to understand and had very little correct use of sounds.

He made tremendous progress with his therapist and although concerned, we felt a bit more positive about him starting school.

He started in September. His teacher contacted me within days to say she was struggling to understand him and my heart sank. His therapist introduced a page of picture clues of every day activities that he could point to if he wasn't getting his point across. I also shared all weekend news etc via the Tapestry app to give his teacher a head start in understanding him.

However, eventually all of those things to help him faded away because his speech improved even more once he started school. Phonics has helped I think and despite his speech he is doing well in terms of reading and writing. Socially, he has also grown in confidence and will now chat to other children whereas before he would hold back. He's in a little talking group and again this has increased his confidence. Our private therapist has also been into school and talked to the staff about ways to help him.

I understand all of your concerns but in my experience other children don't seem to notice speech and just accept other children (I'm also a teacher so see it a lot.) School has been the making of our little boy and we are really proud of his perseverance and resilience.

@burtrix7

Thank you, I’m so pleased your little one is doing so well! That’s great to hear. Always nice when someone has been there and understands how worrying it is!
Can I ask how much salt Input he has been getting from school? I don’t know how much I can expect ask for (will also send my private therapist in like you) but I don’t know what a reasonable ask or whether I expect too much. Benefit of the school is that some of the reception Tas are SALT trained so will be able to input.

Thanks so much.

He hasn't had a lot to be honest and I did bring it up with his teacher in the first parents evening. However, there are 30 children and only her and one teaching assistant so I understand it's difficult. He probably has a session once a week, but our private therapist goes in every 2 weeks (now covid restrictions have relaxed). I think it depends on each individual school's situation. Previously, as a teacher, I've been fortunate enough to spare staff so a child would get 10 mins most days. However, with a tricky year group or minimal support it has been very difficult to fit it in. You sound like in a really strong position with staff being salt trained.
I'm sure your little one will get on just fine :)

Thank you for coming back to me. I’m pleased he’s made so much progress with not too much input from school. My daughter will be going to a large 3 form school with extremely good staff numbers some reception classes have 3 tas per class so I’m hoping for her to be able to get some kind of input everyday without having to constantly pay for the private therapist to go in. You have given me a lot of hope and reassurance so I’m very grateful thank you 😊 good luck with everything xx

DD2 started school with probably about 25% intelligible speech to us who knew her and could work out what she was talking about.

Honestly - the biggest issue we had were mums on the playground trying to micromanage girls' friendships to make sure they only played with THEIR mate's children (it's a fucking nightmare cohort for the cliques). She doesn't have a statement - but the school planned for TA time three times a week to run through whatever work the private SALT we saw had set (and obviously we did it at home as well).

Verbal dyspraxia versus phonological disorder are two pretty different things though - although we did do a lot of phonological awareness work with DD. Being able to produce the sounds in therapy but not generalising them into speech is fairly normal - you might well find the "correct" sound comes in with newly-learnt words first and then creeps down to existing vocabulary - and the progress feeling slow... then suddenly a bit clicks... then nothing again - that's pretty much normal too - I'm now a student SALT and I got asked on my interview what advice I'd give to a parent of a child with some form of speech delay - and I said something like "it might feel like you're getting nowhere sometimes and have a long way to go, but turn around and look back mentally at where you've come from sometimes and realise how far you've made it" and the interviewer loved that answer (and I got onto the course).

To me it sounds more of a phonological disorder than verbal dyspraxia - if you can "tune in" and understand her perfectly then it sounds like her "wrong" sounds are pretty consistently wrong - with verbal dyspraxia it's a lot more erratic as some days the brain can get all the bits moving in the right way and some days wires are crossed left right and centre. (With my daughter it IS verbal dyspraxia along with motor dyspraxia so it's kind of my pet "thing")

In terms of reassuring you - DD is now 8 years old... started reception and we got told she wouldn't manage to learn phonics and to read, and I was terrified no one would understand her - but we had an amazing reception teacher, and an amazing year 2 teacher (we'll not talk about year 1) who was also the most fucking fantastic SENCO ever - and she got on just fine. The kids initially were a little wary of not quite understanding her but they all got through it and she became an incredibly valued member of the class - and an absolute minor celebrity to the kids in the years below her who all thought she was utterly amazing (she's a bit of a mother hen type who loves taking younger kids under her wing). Now fully intelligible - few speech quirks here and there (I'm more sensitive to them than most obviously) and the intonation and rhythm of her speech isn't quite "right" but she reads at greater depth, is on-track for all her other subjects (considering her dyspraxia generally is pretty severe that's a bloody achievement) and is doing fine with it all.

Unfortunately we've moved up to the juniors who really really don't get language disorders and I'm on a one-woman warpath on that front really! We'll get there though and DD can back chat, argue the toss, and give attitude back so perfectly now that there are days I curse her SALT's name!

Thank you so much for your message. You seem very knowledgeable and it’s wonderful to see how far you’ve come on your journey. You must be so so proud of your daughter.

I know what you mean about the mums playground and forced friendships it happens everywhere and drives me crazy! My daughter despite her difficulties with speech is one of the most confident outgoing kids there is. She doesn’t seem to really take any notice until more recently that her speech is off. She’s ballsy and very sociable so I’m hoping she will be able to make friends easily and hopefully they will be able to tune into her speech in time.
It’s terrifies me for reception as she is my baby and I’m her communicator. I’m going to arrange a meeting with senco prior to her starting so that she can continue getting the input from her private therapist when in school. As NHS have her at the mid/bottom of an extremely long list and I don’t want to waste a term waiting or being told a term down the line that there is a problem I’m well aware there is.
With regard to the phonological/dyspraxia the therapist has said both at times and there was some inconsistency before such as arm would be darm and then next time yarm: she couldn’t make the P sound isolated (can now) but could say Peppa and p in rapunzal perfectly but I would say now her errors are fairly consistent and she pretty much uses the D sound for a lot of her first learnt words like you said a lot of newer words are clearer or correct but she can then slip back again. So Barbie example. Would be Darbie and then I model slowly in syllables and she can say it perfectly wit the B but then flips back to Darbie by default and can’t re say it correctly again.
You have given me so much reassurance about the future - its such hard work but as long as it pays off then fantastic. I’m so proud of her

Good luck with juniors it’s a big ramp up isn’t it. sounds like she has a very supportive mumma fighting every step of the way for her x

Your experience sounds very similar to ours, only our son is 3 years 7 months now and we have 11 months until school.

Can I ask how your daughter is getting on? And did you ever get a diagnosis? And was it helpful? We've been told his language isn't developed enough to be able to diagnose, but verbal dyspraxia and phonological both mentioned,

Hiya,
Still no official diagnosis, other than there is some dyspraxia going on with elements of phonological private speech therapist isn’t one to state a label. She more along the lines of every child presents in different ways.
With regards to school, we are nearly half a term into reception. Going very well, I wish I knew this as I wouldn’t have spent so much time worrying. Teacher tuned into my daughters speech very quickly not once have I been told they have struggled to under stand her needs. My daughter from day 1 has been participating and speaking during carpet time. Teacher did tell my speech therapist there has been one or 2 times the other children Haven’t understood but always between them get there in the end. My daughter is my no means the only one in the class with speech problems. She’s grasped all her phonics sounds really quickly (blending them hasn’t come yet) this is something that will be tricky for her but I am prepared for that. I have sent my private therapist to the school to set the Tas up with exercises To do. Parent teachers is next week but on 2 occasions I’ve been told she’s doing very well. But most importantly she’s very happy at school. My worries have gone down a lot now and I’m so very proud of how she’s settled and how well she’s done! Other thing to mention is although her language was always good and she has a lot to say (just pronounciation problems) her vocabulary and general capabilities to be extremely cheeky have excelled since school already.
So I need not have worried half as much as I did! Fingers crossed things will get better from now on in! A lot can change very quickly 😊
Hope that helps!