Question for SALTS please. If a child has a 12/15/18 month language delay, what is it 12/15/18 months delayed from?

[lingle]

Is it measured from the middle of the normal range or from one of the edges and if so which edge? And is the point it is measured from adjusted for sex, so that a girl's delay would tend to be 15 months but she might be identical to a boy with a 12 month delay?

Many thanks in advance! It has been really bugging me when I see these references and can't figure out what they might mean!

By the way, quick thank you to Moondog for the recommendation of the author of "Listen to your Child". After I'd gone through it with a pen changing all the references to when things happen (I added another year to make it less painful!), I managed to read it with pleasure. Very helpful to start getting more familiarity with normal development.

Phoenix, that is great and a really good example of what I am talking about.
My particulat clinical field of interest is people who are non verbal (and who often-unsurprisingly-have challenging behaviour).

As soon as I see them Iwhatever their age) the clock starts ticking.This person needs help to communicate NOW or pretty soon they are gonig to be either very pissed off or very withdrawn.

I make my assessment process as short and unobtrusive as possible.I know what to do.When you've seen 100s of people over the years, it comes to you very fast. Planning intervention is never an issue.Getting other people to do what needs to be done (in particular schools) is.

Very interesting posts moondog and phoenix. This has been very helpful. In fact, I wish I'd had this conversation before my meeting last week. Instead of saying "oh no he can do that" I would have been saying "I see, and what steps do you think we should take to address this?". Also, I now think it doesn't particularly matter if the assessments make him sound more troubled than he is as they are really just confirmation of the nursery teacher's worries plus a passport to additional services.

I totally see where you are coming from on knowledge transfer. And on the inevitable pressure on SALTs' time affecting the quality of work they can do.

Yes.Exactly
(Strange but great how you seem to catch my drift instantly)

Put the ball in their court.
'And how are you plannig to address that?'

And yes, good move politically to make someone look more needing of support in a report. Particulalry with resources being so thing on the ground.

As a rough idea of an average remit, I have about 80-100 people of all ages on my caseload, ranging from ages of 3-80. I cover 3 schools,1 day centre, 3 or 4 sheltered workplace,s a couple of colleges, and countless homes.I'm part of 3 differnet teams and expected to be in offices/meetings of each. My 3 colleagues and I also trained 480 people on about 16-20 different aspects of communication this last year.Oh, and I am studying for an MSc (and have a private singing/signing business.)

goodness! and you still find time to come and help with invaluable advice on here... thankyou, X

PS do you have a secret stash of 'time' you can dip into when you need?

It's a subject dear to my heart so therefore a pleasure.

Time?
No.
Did I mention my 2 small children and a dh away for 6 weeks at a time?
One makes time for the things one wants to make time for I ind.
Speaking of matters temporalake time for my mammoth training session next week....

I have no idea about the speech percentiles or how they are calculuated but I think in statistical terms, there is a big difference between the 'mean' which is calculated as a raw average taking in extremes at both ends and the 'mode' which is the most frequently occurring measurement. I suppose the question is how tightly clustered is the norm for speech? You don't get 2 week old babies speaking in sentences, equally a 3 year old with no language is not expected. From my own limited experience, I have not come across (m)any NT children with either significantly delayed or significantly advanced speech. Are there children in real life who are 18 months 'ahead' ?

both my mother and my (female) cousin both spoke in full sentences when they were 9/10 months old - they also walked by 9mths too. They would certainly be considered as 'forward/ahead (of their time)'.

They were speaking single words at 5/6mths incidentally - and 3/4mths later 3/4word sentences.

My mothers IQ has been measured at 138 (certainly not a genius tho ) but im not sure if that has any bearing on developement.... personally some days i truly think she never really got past 14yrs!

cyber..my 2nd son is 12 mths ahead. partly due to older brother and my job i guess. but it doesnt due him any favours as hes 3.4 language skills of a 4.4 yr old, but emotionally still 3yrs old.
x

I didn't mean the question in a confrontational way - obviously some children do speak a little ahead of others but I was just wondering what they are ahead of but I suppose that gets back to the original question.

i guess they are ahead of the "developmental norms" whatever they may be..

LOL I have forgotten what median is as compared to mean. Is median the one where you take the sample size - say a sample size of 100 and you choose the point where there are equal numbers of children above and below. Even though the median may differ from the mean.

I promise I really did get grade A at stats. A level and in fact still have nightmares about the revision!

lingle - Yes. Median is middle number, mean is all added up and divided by how many there are. MODE is Most Often.

You can tell i tought GCSE maths to a child with ADHD! you should witness my 'fractions' explained in a minute!

Gosh Moondog you are very busy!

Small children, a husband away 6 weeks at a time, several areas of clinical speciality, doing an MSc and running a sign and sign business at the same time.

Get you.

and I forgot training to be a behavioural analyst....

This is exactly the sort of thing that has been tying me up in knots.

DD at 3.1 was assessed on the Reynell DLS, and had raw score 32, which equated to 12th centile, and age equivilancy of 2.6.

But what does that MEAN? I understand centiles. I understand that it puts her 'behind' by 7 months on that test.

But it doesn't capture the difficulties we have. Because a lot of her difficulties seem to be contextual to me, and it is hard to explain just how she gets the wrong end of the stick.

Also, she picks up phrases, but the SALT said she isn't echolaic because she uses them in context. Well yes, she does, because she has heard them in context. If she hears the phrase in a different context, she completely misunderstands.

She also says things in particular 'accents'. Like "I want a bowl eat" is said with a quasi Northern accent. Who knows why?

SALT is going to call in a few weeks time, and give some outreach advice to preschool, but hasn't suggested any sessions. I suppose because DD can't sit still for even a few minutes, and the room they have available is frankly dangerous for a child like her.

I would have loved to be given the Reynell Manual and understand what it is actually telling us.

I think, as parents, we feel the need to know 'where' our child is. Tests give something to hold onto, but Moondog is so right that actually what we want is for the test to become irrelevant because our child moves on beyond it.

"But it doesn't capture the difficulties we have.". Completely agree. Having a picture in front of you to discuss/describe and cue you in is so different from the challenges of day to day conversation. I've always understood that it is a form of echolalia using the phrases in context. The most positive form of echolalia there is -(e.g. comparing it to the ritual repetition of TV scripts that DS used to do at 3). My DS also does the accent thing too - picks up accents v. easily from TV programs. I hope that your discussion from SALT is constructive.

My DS1 (4) uses echolalia in context - He says ' See you Soon' after saying Bye Bye but he does not have a normal understanding of the pronoun 'You'. He can say ' Hurry Up' to people in a queue but does not have a normal understanding of what 'Hurry' means

I find the echolalia in context phrases don't tend to stick - that DS may use them for a month or so, and then not again.

dd1 is the absolute master of echolalia in context.

until very recently, virtually everyhting she said was echolalia in context. I sometimes think she looks on language as part of a routine.

So, like Mastercyber, dd1 would say "bye bye, see you soon" at school, but also knows to say "bye bye, thankyou" to delivery people.

There are some things she gets stuck on, which is where I start thinking that langugae is part of routine for her, like when I give her her lunch, she will say "might be a bit warm", whether it is or not (she has understanding of hot/cold) as I say this fairly often. Occasionally she will really get stuck and not be able to start eating until i have said it, but the phrase started out as contextual, and has got a bit out of control.

Cyber, if you told DS1 to hurry up, would he not speed up then? Is that what you mean by 'normal' understanding?

DS2 does the 'bye-bye, see you soon/next week' thing. Funnily enough, only with the phrase 'bye-bye'though.

He has recently started to spontaneously (sp) say hello to strangers, but he calls them by other adults' names he knows, such as 'hello dad', 'hello tracey' etc

It's a good question about whether he would respond to being told to hurry. Gauging his receptive understanding is difficult. He probably would respond to 'Hurry Up' but used in another context - ie telling him that someone else has to hurry, it would probably not mean as much. He has developed some flexibility with the phrases though . "Fell Down' is a favourite one starting in a normal context then if something happens that he does not like such as a balloon bursting , he wills say 'Balloon fell down' as he does not know the word burst. DH claimed he asked a 'Where' question last night but I'm waiting to hear it myself before pouring the virtual champagne.

You understand! The thing is it does sound quite meaningful, but it is the everyday stuff that is a little odd.

So for example, DD will say "Hello" to strangers, but unless she knows their name, she adds a descriptor.

So the insulation guys came last week, and she said "Hello Man!". To a little boy at the hospital today: "Hello Boy!". She still calls her sister "Baby", although occasionally uses her name now. But interestingly (or not), depending on who she hears speaking, she changes how she addresses someone.

So if she hears me call my Dad "Dad" on the phone, she will say "Hello Dad" to her Grandad, despite the fact that she knows that he is Grandad. She will speak to "Ben" if she hears me speaking to DH first, but "Daddy" the rest of the time.

But the Reynell doesn't ask about that sort of stuff, lol.

Isn't that just overextending?

it's normal to call every man "daddy", then every man "man" then eventually to learn that every one has a different name.

Oh I agree, lingle. Hello man, boy, etc is completely normal language development.

DS2 was saying 'girl' and 'boy' etc before he decided to 'name' some of the strangers he meets. They don't seem to bat a eyelid and just say 'hello' back.

However, he does get the names right of the people he knows