Confused! Portage but recommended to stay mainstream?

[piffle]

Right
Saw developmental paediatrician for dd 27 mths Noonan Syndrome - late wlaking, hypotonia, slight language acquisition problems but otherwise pretty good.
Given as she has speech and some physical issues Paed recommended her being assessed for portage, and thoroughly advised it.
She did however then say that some of the other more intensive therapy playgroups and sessions would not be in her best interests as she is very close to being mainstream and we should aim for this. While this is brilliant news for dd and us, I am a little confused, dd is to be reassessed in 6 mths which seems like a long time to me? I do not want to risk her falling off the list so to speak, as I know that the recent physio and SALTs have been really beneficial. I'm torn a bit I guess?
Is there a middle line somewhere?

Hi Piffle

Well my dd who has a language disorder is fine in every area except language (obviously). We too were torn between mainstream playgroup and special needs. In the end we settled with an opportunity group which had 50% mainstream and 50% special needs, dd did very well there.
Dd went to ds's ms school, which unfortunately didn't work but in some ways did us a favour as she is in an excellent unit attached to a ms. Again she does 70% ms and 30% unit/SALT.
I really do not know a lot about Noonan's syndrome but just go with how you feel as you know dd better than anyone.

I don't know anything about SN nurseries/schools but I would agree that portage is a great help. Ds2's portage worker comes to visit us once a fortnight and has given me a lot of useful advice and tips about things to do. AFAIK ds2 will be going into a mainstream pre-school with SALT, OT etc continuing out of pre-school hours.

portage is great! take it Honestly my daughter had portage and was mainstreamed aswell, it was only later we decided on the special school, but this was our choice

I used to attend a portage group aswell and the alot of the kids were high functioning. There were twins for instance who were prem who had portage but were now at the same level as their peers. Its just to help that push in the right direction for alot of kids

piffle, that sounds like a good all-round plan. Portage will help her in the areas she needs help in, it's just a bit extra to normal play stuff really and more focused on the problem areas.
SN nursery is a completely different kettle of fish - portage etc told me that my dd with DS did not need to go to a SN nursery as she is 'too able' (she's not, and we decided to send her anyway, with great success) so I am sure it is not appropriate for your dd, judging from what you have said about her development.

It's funny how each child and case is different. My dd had a couple of portage assessments but as her problems were all in the area of language they said she was too high functioning to have any more. The criteria was taht you had to have some sort of developmental delay that dd doesn't. She hit all of her developmental milestones except for speech and language.
However as high functioning as dd is she still needed to go into a unit as having a language disorder means she processes language in a different way and therefore needs more specialist help.

I know what you mean, dd is a superb communicator, she understands extensive protacted commands, open the door, fetch your purple shows, then get the yellow socks, put them on the cat/dog yourself.
It's what comes out of her mouth thats the delay IYKWIM, so because her understanding is so high, I have no worries that it will eventually come, same as her walking, late but already she walks down stairs, can bend and pick things up, run, walk backwards, learning to jump off small heights and even attempts hopping! She only started walking 7 weeks ago!
So it's all relative with dd, it all clicks in when she is ready.
I am quite keen on portage from the sound of it. I guess I just want the reassurance that she is still doing ok...
Thanks for the replies, I am glad to know that MS can work alongside SALTS and the like... I was not too sure how that would work.

If you get offered anything take it. If it doesn't suit dd you can always say its not right for her needs.

Bh We got Portage for ds3 but only for a short while as he went into specialist provision at 3. Ds4 was referred for Portage by SALT but was also refused by Portage team as his needs are considered language based. SALT is not too pleased as she feels he would have benefited from it

blossomhill, to get portage your child has to have significant delays in two or more areas of development

Yes that's what we were told Fio. Although have to say I think dd would have benefitted from something like that from about the age of 18 months - 2 and a half when she wasn't communicating at all. I would have benefitted too!

We must be about the only area where you don't need to be assessed before getting portage. Ds2's name went on the waiting list a couple of months before he saw the Paed. Portage started a month before his full CDC assessment.