Arrrgh! Had row with SALT!

[deeeja]

Actually today I had a row, with SALT, and a health visitor.
Today was discussing ds with psych, who observed my ds at play at my request, she really is so nice!
Then the SALT came to talk to me about ds's speech. She lied and saidthat ds understnads simple instructions, and kept on about hwo well he talks, when all he says is colours, and occasionally names of things like biscuit, and bubbles. I toldher that while he can say words, that is not communication in a normal sense, like other three year olds, and that he doesn't understand simple instructions, or questions, such as 'where is .....', or 'give me ...',(psych agreed with me too!) even my 14 month old baby can understand simple sentences like that. I told her I wanted her to show me how to use Pecs. Well, guess what?? NO pecs for my ds.Why? Because he is not considered in need of them. I asked her if she knew how to use them properly, and errr no she doesn't.
SO HOW DOES SHE KNOW HE DOESN'T NEED THEM?
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!
STAMPING FEET!!!
AM SICK OF IDIOTS!

The easiest way of have found of explaining Ds1's difficulties with communication is to ask people to talk to him as they would a child his age with no communicative difficulties.

I would say that PECS may help your Ds. But forget getting an inexperienced person to teach it because it wont work. If you can, get yourself on a PECS course costs £140 for a day but you can apply for funding if you need to.

It was one of the best things Ive done for my Ds- Its really helped him.

Deeja,how awful and may I say how unusual.It is usually the parents who over- estimate a child's language ability,not the salt. I have had to help a lot of very disappointed parents face reality.

She is talking bollocks about PECS. If she hasn't been PECS trained,she doesn't know what it entails or if it is suitable. Contact the peopel who do PECS training in the UK direct. (I will link) Applt to Social Services or even Rotary Club for funding.

(I'm a SALT by the way and use a LOT of PECS.)

Workshops

Gather all your documentation regarding this salt into a file and call for an interdisciplinary meeting of all who work/have contact with your child to discuss the way forward.

If you dont, they will continue to b.s. you the whole way. You are the weakest link in this chain of idiocy, and they wait with baited breath for you to "break". Its time to break.

You know, if i took my dog to dog school i would expect results and i would expect that the person who is teaching my dog, knows their stuff.

Pity we cant even expect that from a speech therapist.

been a year now since we have had therapy and to be honest, we realised there is no point in fighting cause we DONT WANT WHAT THEY HAVE TO OFFER. WE are doing it ourselves.

what our child needs is not rocket science. Buy the pecs book, (look on ebay/amazon)

Its so easy.

But pecs isnt going to be the whole or even part answer to your childs problem. Pecs offers the chance for your child to make choices, it DOES NOT FACILITATE functional language per se. Pecs has a beginning and an end.

Your child sounds like he needs constant positive reinforcement for every sound he makes. If he says a word or two words, try to turn the words into a sentence, even though the sentence was not the child's intention.

If he says part of a word, or an unintelligible word, make sure you repeat it back to him the "right" way, clearly.

Your child might develop language simply at his own pace and no amount of pecs or speech therapy is going to change that but certainly a good program can help to "organise" your child's brain.

I gave up on speech therapy long ago. Its horrendous right across the country and i dont know how we are going to fix this problem. Parents need to become almost militant. Its our kids that are suffering, but i wonder whether its really any benefit having salt at all when its us, the parents who do most of the "training" with our children.

i think SALT, at least for autism, is just a huge con job.

My DS is being assessed for speech therapy later this month but I'm feeling more worried now. I was not holding my breath before but now I realise the limitations of traditional ST for an ASD child. We tried PECS last year when he was non verbal but had no success (combination of not very good tutor and only short attempt at it). He can now say about 100 words and some short phrases -He has had ABA style therapy at nursery. His comprehension has come on a lot too as he can follow simple instructions. The nursery teacher who works with DS is looking forward to more ST input but maybe this is false optimism. Maybe ST's feel that they are swamped with all these 'new' needs when the profession was originally set up to help normal children with minor speech problems?

Moira, nail on the head!!!

It is soooo encouraging your child has words, much less 100.

I always believed after my child had his first word, that he would speak. He now has thousands of words, no real long sentences yet, but can echo till the cows come home. Keep at it, cause it starts with one word.

elongate his utterances and make them into sentences so he can hear some syntax.

OUr sons first words were "uh" for up. so we gave him every opportunity to say up. he finally said it, then it was "more", then "food", and so on.

useful words first.

My DS does not echo words , normally they are fairly communicative but he can get obsessive about some words like 'helicopter. He will tell us many times that his toy is a helicopter and we have to repeat the word after him or he gets upset. We are working as hard as we can to instill language by lots of repetition and always (nearly)) giving him what he asks for.

He has learned by himself to use 'gone' in different contexts so that's encouraging. But speech in an ASD child is such uncharted territory, you never know what to expect. But to put it all in context, when he was non verbal, I used to fantasise continually about his first word but now I am not really sure what the word was as he had so many indistinct words at first. But it was probably 'ice cream'

Definitely go on the PECS course (or try signing if you get access that for less cash and your child can imitate).

The average SALT's understanding of PECS is embarrassing. I had to give a talk to some trainee SALTS recently and raved about it. Do try and go on the 2 day workshop if you can.

Why isnt there an intro pecs course for free for every parent of a child with speech problems who needs it.

why do we have to rely on salts to do something that could very easily be done by ourselves. I first learned pecs via a video i bought, then bought the book.

to be honest, the book was helpful, but i NEVER had the time to read it, keep track with charts and data, etc, what i needed was something i could learn quickly without having to conduct an analysis every time i used the program.

this is defo possible, to teach parents the pecs system, easily and cheaply. but of course, our kids rank pretty low on the "value" register and no one is thinking about what our kids and us as parents need, but rather, what "they" can provide in the context of finances.

Its so so depressing the simple things that could help children like mine, that just arent being provided.

Yet, kids who dont have these difficulties have so many opportunities. My niece is presently going on a subsidised skiing trip with her school. Will my son ever get to do this? The absolute WASTE of the enhanced or enriched curriculum, which they want to bring in, is insane. the money it cost. Yet a simple thing to help our children develop basic communication is not available.

if i was a salt, i dont think i would or could work in the system, any salt worth their salt must feel very very frustrated.

Why isnt there an intro pecs course for free for every parent of a child with speech problems who needs it.

why do we have to rely on salts to do something that could very easily be done by ourselves. I first learned pecs via a video i bought, then bought the book.

to be honest, the book was helpful, but i NEVER had the time to read it, keep track with charts and data, etc, what i needed was something i could learn quickly without having to conduct an analysis every time i used the program.

this is defo possible, to teach parents the pecs system, easily and cheaply. but of course, our kids rank pretty low on the "value" register and no one is thinking about what our kids and us as parents need, but rather, what "they" can provide in the context of finances.

Its so so depressing the simple things that could help children like mine, that just arent being provided.

Yet, kids who dont have these difficulties have so many opportunities. My niece is presently going on a subsidised skiing trip with her school. Will my son ever get to do this? The absolute WASTE of the enhanced or enriched curriculum, which they want to bring in, is insane. the money it cost. Yet a simple thing to help our children develop basic communication is not available.

if i was a salt, i dont think i would or could work in the system, any salt worth their salt must feel very very frustrated.

A pig just flew past the window mmddww. As an aside I do know someone who gave up SALT training when she realised how little difference she would be able to make.

A good point though- the PECS video is a great introduction for anyone struggling to afford the 2 day workshop, or trying to do it alone.

" Yet a simple thing to help our children develop basic communication is not available. ".

Absolutely and utterly agree MMDDWW. I silently scream when hearing about how lovely/important etc it is for 5 year olds to learn German - what about those who are finding learning any language a struggle.

It's false economy as well as being able to communicate in some way has such a big effect on challenging behaviours etc.

Hi...
I'm afraid I'm new here and don't know how old your son is..but one thing I do know is... PECS is a wonderful communication tool, if used correctly and with a child who can benefit!

My son has MLD and ASD (tho I'd call him more aspie) but ,y job is working with young people..teens with severe asd and severely challenging behaviour and one thing I do know is.. PECS is beneficial as long as the person doing it knows ..RRALLY knows, what it is and how to follow the process.

Even if the SLT is useless, if you can get on the two day course YOU can do it..you can meet your son's needs ..go for it!
Juliex
Mum to Charlie 10, MLD, ASD adorable!

where is the NAS on this (not that i have ever found them to be the slightest bit of use).

how many thousands did they spend on the "transporters" video?

they could have done a video on how to facilitiate communication.

problem is PECS (the pyramid organisation) has it all sown up.

just like the teacch people.

anyone can do pecs, you dont need the PECS brand to do it, you could pictures from a catalogue to make the pecs cards, and most of what you need to start are on the internet for free.

but again, people are making money off the backs of our children.

so the government pays big fees so that "professionals" only can go to these courses, but what if you have 3 children, on benefits, with no babysitters and cant get out for a 2 day course??

we havent been able to access anything, cause i have no one to babysit and hubby cant take time off work every few weeks for me to update my knowledge at this or that course.

the knowledge we need is given to the "specialists", and until we scream louder than we already are, i dont see things changing.

in fact that deserves a new thread

I think part of the problem in the UK mmddww is that to teach PECS effectively you do have to understand basic ABA principals - you do have to understand reinforcement for example, and so few professionals in the UK have any understanding of that at all. Pyramid do cover that in their 2 day workshop- although I agree absolutely it doesn't really need to be 'branded' and it should be adaptable to each child . I've adapted PECS at home to suit ds1 - in ways which might have pyramid sucking lemons, but it works better for us. Unfortunately like most parents I had to pay to learn about reinforcement.

I think part of the problem is that the knowledge is not given to the (NHS) therapists - often it does make its way into special schools.

I agree that transporters was a bit of a weird idea - there probably are a few kids it might benefit in the way it was meant to, but Simon Baron-Cohen and the Cambridge autism research centre are pretty influential within the NAS (which is perhaps why the NAS appears to have focussed so much on HFA/AS recently)

As an SLt with ten years NHS experience, I see many valid points raised on this thread, not least the acknowledgement that those SLTs worth their "salt" would be incredibly frustrated working within the NHS.

Ten years down the line I do not feel my profession makes a difference to the patients we treat, however, this is almost exclusively due to lack of funding, stretching services beyond capacity until the only thing we can offer is a half-termly chat with a dis-interested classroom assistant.

It is almost impossible to go on courses. In my last job, our annual training budget was £18 per head and shortly before I left they actually froze the budget. This is commonplace across the region in which I live. It is therefore probably no fault of your SLT that she is "clueless about PECS" when she is probably unable to secure the funding to become "clued". Unfortunatley, many SLTs bear the brunt of parents' frustration with the system; a frustration that mirrors their own.

I personally have become so fed up with the NHS system that I resigned and went to work abroad for a year. I've now returned to the UK but am considering setting up privately and my main reason for this is that I am very tired of being treated badly by the NHS on the one hand and being moaned about by parents on the other.

Unfortunately the combination of both these factors is making many of my colleages think twice about continuing in public healthcare and I predict a huge privatisation of the system over the next ten years. There will still be NHS therapists about but also many unfilled vacancies, with those prepared to pay getting a much better service for their children.

Mogwai, nice to see you back. Can't believe a year has passed already. How is the baby?

As a SALT myself I agree with both Mogwai and
Mamadada. I'm not happy anymore in my job (the insane bureacracy and paperwork has see to that) and am considering leaving to go into private practice.

However, I am massively into PECS and persuaded our Education Authority to pay for hundreds of staff and parents to attend the 2 day course (my proudest achievement in work so far.) I think it is becoming much more acceptes,as is ABA on which it is based.

I don't think Pyramid are fleecing anyone either. The course is excpetional value for money and they have to make a living too.

I argue with my Education authority that the cost of a PECS course is nothing compared to the cost of

1.) Employing large numbers of untrained staff to mill about the place as is the case now.

2.) Looking after someone with challenging behaviour which has developed as a direct consequence of being unable to communicate effectively.

I have started writing on statement reviews that school staff cannot meet the comm. needs of the children they work with due to poor training which is making people sit up (I ok it with the staff beforehand-I'm on their side after all)

The PECS manual is not hard to read actually. I am soo not a manual person but I really enjoy reading this.It's actually by my bedside at the moment as I am preparing for a training day for school staff (got to cover PECS, Makaton,Widgit and Boardmaker in about 4 hours. Phew!!!!

Hi! Trying to follow this. Could someone tell me what PECS is? And do any of you know of a good private SALT in South Bucks? My DS has 'word finding difficulty' and I am having trouble getting info/feedback/comms with our present SALT. I'm new to all this so would really appreciate any guidance.

good thread
it isn't fair Deeja.

I find that I am very lucky for support and services, that I have not had to fight for anything yet.

I am going on a pecs course that is (partly) local authority funded but it is a pyramid one,so I am paying £65 for the full two days...

who has been my point of contact? SALT, who has pretty much been there all along, when I reluctantly agreed that my ds was not developing like an nt child... she has been the one to arrange/encourage and support us all along... get us to go on signing course... persuaded me to see Consultant Paed.

what is the difference? I think the SALT here doesn't have the same pressure on her as she would if she lived somewhere more densely populated?

I just wanted to say that not all SALT are equal, that they can do a good job in the right circs.