Speech & Language delays - your experiences please!

[Barmymummy]

My DS has language delays both expressive and receptive. They aren't really bad to be honest but they are noticeable. He has no problems with phonic pronounciation it is more 'what he says'.

For example, unless it is something he knows well he has to try really hard to think about what he wants to say and 9/10 times it comes out wrong or muddled up. He can definately get across what he wants to say but can come out 'odd'.

He has ASD traits but no dx is deemed anywhere near necessary apparently. Am happy to go along with this until he starts school in Jan when we get rid of our awful paed for pre-schoolers!!

Anyway, would SALT benefit these types of speech problems or is this just practice etc?? He saw a SALT in May who just said if he didn't continue to improve to get back in touch and they would review so might do that anyway.

Does anyone have experience of these types of speech probs and if so, how did it all work out in the end? Thanks very much.

At around 5 my DD was diagnosed with expresive and receptive language delay of about 6 months. Nothing too bad we thought. We went for two or three NHS SALT sessions which were next to useless and were dismissed. We payed for private SALT till Christmas when we were finally given it as part of statement. She is 9 now, has a diagnosis of ASD and ADD. What seemed like a minor delay has grown and I can't imagine how bad it would be now if we hadn't paid for SALT ourselves. She is now being paid by the LEA to go into see DD once every two weeks but her LSAs also carry out a daily program. It's the memory with DD, she can't remember what she wants to say and can't express herself very well so often gets frustrated. It comes out as a time delay when she talks. If I was thinking I would um and ah while I got my thoughts together but she just waits until they come into her head and it can take ages, very frustrating for her and everyone else. She has never had any problem with pronunciation its more memory, speed of recall, and expression.

Thank you, thats very helpful. How has she coped at school? Have her school been supportive/understanding?

ds2 (6) has word retrival & structuring problems, so everything is very slow to come out as he has to process everything before he says it & then he seems to forget what he wants to say.

DS2 has a SALT programme they do at school, I was very sceptical at first as it seemd very basic stuff but it seems to help.

Yes the SALT gave some guidleines in her report and the SENCO at school said they had all the programmes there and they would start him on them when he gets to year 1 if problems continue. Fingers crossed it helps then!!

Also the more anxious or tired he is the worse it becomes atm we still ahve to give him loads of times & not allow him to be bombarded with questions or requests.

The problem is people don't realise he is still processing and will repeat the q to him which gives him more info to process & slow things further.

I would be inclined to ge the Salt programme going, it can't do any harm.

The advise they gave us at home before he started the school programme was just to get him to talk through picture books together, encouraging him to explain what his happening on each page/picture.

Barnymummy - your DS sounds just like mine! As he also has epilepsy, we don't know if his slow speech is caused by his medication, some cognitive prob or the dyspraxic type problems the ed psyc has picked up on. I also think he has some ASD traits plus some ADD ones too!

He's fine when he is chatting about what is going on now, it's when he is trying to recall something that he just gets so stuck! I've been in touch with a private SALT as we know that it's unlikely that we'll get it on the NHS as he's not "bad enough"

My ds is 3.9, he has mild asd, and speech delay with expressive/receptive difficulties.
Up to age 3, his language very delayed, he could bearly string 2-3 words together, he uses a lot of jargon, and could only semi understand instructions that were part of daily activities.
Now he can string about 5-6 words together, he understand familiar sentences, but is still lost with unfamiliar phrases, or anything past or in the future. He is quite hard to understand as he has trouble sounding his consonants.
DS also has a fair bit of echolalia (SALT said he repeats back what he hears, because it helps him process the meaning of the words! Salt calls this re-auditorization).

DS has had so far 12 group sessions of salt, and i think the last lot really did help him.
He is also on a waiting list for a special language group for 5 hours a week in a nursery setting. I hope he gets a place there, so we have kept his verbal dx of asd to ourselves as it is only available to kids with "pure" language delays/disorders.

I got a book called "the parent's guide to speech and language problems" by Debbie Feit.
It 's great for explaining the disorders and what will be helping.

If you have any concerns I would encourage you to seek help now as waiting list can be very long. I can't see it doing any harm. Ds was first referred to salt over a year ago and has only had one block of 5 sessions of group therapy. Luckly ds has got a place on a language group starting in september and will get more therapy there. Does he go to nursery?

I woul et back intouch salts seem to have long lists right acros sthe country mind not saying there any good when you see them