Should I ring and ask for more SALT help?

[used2bthin]

Sorry this may or may not be in the right place, wasn't sure whether to post here or in behavious but here goes. DD is having speech therapy. Well she has had one session and the SALT said to come back in two months and gave me some ideas to try at home. She thinks I need to focus on language first and then speech. DD is communicating through signs and just pointing, screetching and pulling me by the hand to show me what she wants.

I've been doing what the SALT advised but feel like I'm getting nowhere and some days I think DD has been saying stuff to me but its so unclear I can't make it out, other days I fel like she is just makig the noises she thinks others make. For instance she sai clearly "read a book" one day and appropriately. Since then though she will say it less clearly and not appropriately fairly often, its like she knows that it got a good reaction but doesn't understand about the meaning.

Also she doesn't say hello or goodbye, I am really trying to work on those but beginning to panic slightly. Any advice on this gratefully recieved. I am worried that she doesn't get something iyswim, like she tries to go through the motions but doesnt really understand. She is very sociable and loves racing about, chasing etc with other kids, chats away in her own language to them but doesn't actually form words just repeats the same phrases or sounds.

Sorry to go off on a tangent I am just unsure as to how worried I should be and feel like time is ticking away and there is no improvement. The SALT said to ring her if I was worried and she would try to fit her in sooner. I am wondering if should just ring and voice my concerns really or whether I am panicking over nothing.

Yes, definitely ask for her to be seen sooner, and for her views on saying hello/goodbye etc, and whether it's something you should be focussing on right now. Does she wave/sign the words?

Thanks for the reply TC, no she does nothing for hello but she does wave goodbye now. She is still quite young so I think the SALT wasn't that concerned but she also said that if I notice she is struggling with anything in particular to call for advice so I will do that. She thought it was a delay, possibly due to having had quite a traumatic time medically but I am worried it is something more long lasting.

Yes I would ring too. SALT services can be spread thin on the ground but early intervention is really important is she has longer term problems.

I have been trying to ring today but no answer, it does say on the answer machine that she is around on fridays so I have left a message. She was very helpful and said to call if I was worried so I'm hoping she won't mind having a chat with me and maybe seeing her sooner than planned although I know she is probably really busy. Its so hard to know what is just me over thinking it but, I have studied language development a tiny bit and worked with children for years and it seems to me that she isn't following the typical way of learning, she just seems to hav stock hrases or sounds that she repeats without knowing the meaning. Although in the last month she has started saying bird and signing it so that is some progress. She is falling further behind her peers though, what was just a slight difference has become a really noticeable one.

Sounds really stupid but with all her medical issues it didn't occur to me that she would have any developmental ones!

Ok just spoke to DDs SALT. She was really helpful and is even sending her assistant over to help me make photo cards to go with a feely bag game she has suggested because my digital camera is broken.

She has offered to see DD earlier than planned so it will be this side of christmas now.

I asked whether DD has definately got delay or could it be a disorder and she said its too early to say, it could be a disorder though as she seems unable to put consonants and vowels together (just using vowel sounds?). She suggested referring DD to a paediatrician to assess her fully. I said I am hapy for this to happen but am now slightly worried about why she feels DD needs this? She also talked about me seeing the early years inclusion team to help get things in place for any support DD may need when she starts school/pre school. This would also be helpful for me with DDs medical needs so I agreed again, just a bit scared now about what needs she is thinking DD may have.

Anyone around to give advice or experiences?

Got to go offline now but if anyone has any info on the difference between a language delay and disorder I would be really grateful. Trying not to over react with this as DD has so many appointments already but then I want her to have as much help as she needs obviously.

with the vowel sounds SALT may be getting at speech/delay disorder rather than language delay/disorder ~ i.e. a physical difficulty producing the sounds. Stressful as it maybe, rather than us second guessing, I think it's best if you phone up SALT and ask her bluntly what a paed would be assessing her for. When DS saw the paed at a joint clinic last year he was assessed for ASD (answer was probably not) and for learning difficulties (answer was no, as he did very well at the non-verbal reasoning tasks they gave). But your DD sounds to have a different medical background so different set of issues to my DS - so she may not necessarily be assessed for the same things.

when I asked my SALT whether DS had a language disorder her response was:-

1. the actual criteria for language disorder vary from area to area (i.e. it's not like a lot of medical/developmental problems that have clear criteria that apply to all kids).

1. it would depend on whether DS's language seemed to be developing in a disordered way AND whether he was 2 deviations below the norm - which I think means whether he was 2nd percentile or lower for language, given that the low end of normal is 17th percentile.

Thanks TotalChaos she said DD vowel sounds was pointing towards a disorder but that it is hard to tell atm, she wants to keep an eye on her and can't rule it out just yet. She said language but that speech needs work too. I thought that about the sounds but she initially said we would work on that when we had worked on language a bit more. She only has a few sounds/words atm and its all a bit sporadic.

she has already said (after I asked) that DD is not low end of average she is under that quite a bit. I asked about learning difficulties and she said she doesn't think that DD has them significant enough to mean that she will never talk but that she needs support now. Which is reassuring I think? She didn't think she needs to be assessed for Autism so I think the paed thing was as a way of seeing where she is with everything although I don't really know what else they would be looking for.

I think really what she was saying is that there is no definate answer for now but yes I will ask what they would be assessing her for when we have our next appointment, she said she would speak to the community nurse and then we could discuss at Dds appointment.

Oh she also is going to try and get us into a language and makaton class that she may be running next year which can only be a good thing. In the meantime I need to work on the makaton at home as we only have a few signs so far I need to be more consistent with it I think.

Ps thanks also for telling me to ring, wasnt sure if I was being OTT or pushy but I'm so glad I rang now and she didnt mind at all.