SLTs are ganging up on us

[zakmum]

Yesterday we had a meeting at the school with independent slt and two pct's slts.Dd is 8yrs old and is non-verbal, she was granted an hour per week slt provision at the tribunal.We have been working on her vocal sounds since last year at home and she has made good progress meaning she can say her phonics now .
We asked the independent slt to add working on her speech in her weekly program. She asked school's slts to come on the meeting and they all said that it is against the speech therapy's guidelines to work on an autistic child's speech and we are only allowed to work on her functional communication and if someone is doing this privately they are going against the guidelines. They also said if she is to speak she will do it because of pecs anyway.
I am confused because on one hand they are saying that she is so retarted that their is no point working directly on her speech and on the other hand they are saying that she might speak without intensive input. The senco said to us that we should respect the proffesionals and give up on this idea but carry on working at home on her speech.
I told senco that they can't take any credit for her speech in future and she said we will because she will speak due to pecs.They are all covering for each other and I am feeling very alone and helpless. instead of helping us these people are telling us not to do anything for your child. Any views on the matter.

I have this problem too. Ds1 is verbal and can request and comment spontaneously but all I ever get from nhs is pecs pecs and more pecs. He is moving on to longer phrases but for them one pecs card would be nirvava

Ask to see their certificates for their PECS training. The training specifies when it is appropriate to phase out PECS. YOu can ask them what criteria your ds would need to meet for this to happen too.

Blimmin PECS. (Well done it is fantastic, but more often than not it isn't and it is the bane of my life I can tell ya!)

I agree PECS can suit some children in some circumstances but the problem is the scale of the commitment to PECS uber alles within the NHS SALT provision. I have asked many times what we will achieve with PECS if a child can already request and comment spontaneously, functionally, appropriately and on own initiative so frequently but I have never had an answer. In fact, I have never even spoken to the same SALT twice due to staffing shortages/maternity leave. In my opinion, writing 'PECS strategy implemented' is just a way to tick a box for DS1 and no one has even thought about my questions let alone tried to answer them. Getting back to OP, How does your dd request items within the home ? I am not ganging up on you too but this is the first question any PECS enthusiast will ask.

You need to ask then, 'What comes after PECS?'

I agree. My reports are littered with 'PECS implemented, - ds starting to intiate requests using PECS', - they forget to also write

'he was requesting a biscuit verbally with eye contact for over 5 minutes before he finally understood that I would ignore him until he handed me a card'

My dd is using sign along to request, she knows more than hundred signs and can say first sound of every thing she needs.She is spontaneous with her requests, All we want is some guidance but the slts are not prepared to put pressure on their brains. Independent slt was not given to us on a plate, we had to go to tribunal to get that so she should be taking our opinion into account or we can always change her.

I see what you mean - She is already communicating functionally with what she is doing. You are not alone with PECS obssessed SLTs ! I agree with DPW - insist on knowing why they think she meets the criteria for their approach. We just work at home on our language development now.

How crap. We have had the sane in the past. What they mean is 'we don't have a clue how to work with your child so we will blame it on them'.

You could ask them to train in VB and come back to you.

You need moondog for advice on how to argue the case.

It sounds as if she might have some motor issues preventing her from speaking clearly (this is ds1's problem) - this is not going to be corrected by pecs - although pecs will certainly support her language development and reduce frustration. (although sign will do the same if course and she's using that).

I would ask them to show you the research that demonstrates that Pecs will help a motor disorder of speech. They sound like they've labelled her as not worth helping - we've been there.

The school has writen her off, any progress she made is due to our after school home aba program. Any private slt we cotact they want to liase with her speech therapist and all of a sudden they don,t have any availability .as it is we don't have many speech therapist near us.

zakmum I think you have been unlucky with your Indie SLT. Most of them have left the NHS because they are good professionals and they share your frustrations (a small few because they are rubbish and couldn't hack it).

Keep looking. Where abouts are you?

I don't see why a private SLT should have to liase with PCT SLTs . What reasons are they giving ? Also I don't understand them saying it is against speech therapy 'guidelines' to work with an autistic child's speech ! Who are they saying these guidelines are for, regardless of their value ? For NHS SLTs, All SLTs ? The issues you mention are very common and you have summarised them very well - that they say on the one hand that something as simple as PECS could make speech happen whilst at the same time warning you against thinking that intensive input could make any difference ! I have lurked on discussion groups where professionals discuss PECS (including awkward parents !) and it seems to me that speech is very much not a priority for them and is just something to say to keep parents on board - having said that, i have no doubt that some children do speak after using PECS but it is very hard to say or to conclude that PECS alone is the decisive factor. Also PECS can be a very good way of communicating for a non verbal child but there has to be agreement amongst all concerned that this is an appropriate strategy.

And it has to be done properly (rarely ime). Often it is just a waste of time, getting parents and teachers to make pretty pictures to 'support' the child when in fact it does nothing by eat up valuable therapy hours.

I have just this week sent a letter our SLT dept complaining about the whole PECS nonsense, demanding to see their certificates.

Can you believe the removed ds' targets of 'choice making' because I insisted they stopped PECS? They are blaming ME for him not reaching this target which is odd since if they had bothered to test him they'd know that he is excellent at making choices from a field of 5 unseen objects or activities. Hence why I insisted they stopped their stupid nonsense

It is all Alice in SALTLand stuff. If a SLT has a strong belief that only PECS is functional communication for an autistic child then any other evidence can be dismissed or twisted. Some of the disucussions that I lurked on were dominated by this thinking - that an autistic child must not be allowed access to any means of communication other than a PECS book. In some ways it was a bit like a cult with the PECS book having the status of a holy icon !

Are you able to say where you bin lurking?

Well you get to it via the Pyramid site and I don't mean the Phaoroahs one. The traffic is not high (2-3 postings a day but the archives are good for a 'laugh'). They are mostly US based and terribly humourless and earnest about the great PECS mission. I have been tempted to start asking them questions of my own but as I do think it is actually a good system done in the right circumstances, I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not.

I would ask. Your challenges won't be about the system will it, but the implementation and some of the added on assumptions?

I have to say, I blardy LOVE PECS, but you'd hardly guess that from my posts. That is because PECS as a system, and PECS as a cult are two quite seperate things. It is the cult I fight against!

We live in East Ham in East london.Our lea has a misguided inclusion policy which is so rigid that they have only 1 special school in the whole borough which is primarily for physically disabled children.

in the mainstream they expect the autistic children to fit in. They cannot adapt their environmnet and expect these children to make all the adaptions to cope. They also expect them to learn from osmosis and do not work intensively.
They are against all the intensive approaches and site theyuse an eclectic model which basically means jack of all trades and masters of none.

the children cannot cope and in the end school undermines any intense work done with the children at home and really is just a baby sitting service.

It's interesting what you say - the problem is the attitudes though and not necessarily MS/SN specific. Some SN schools do not work intensively on language either and have a strong focus on entertaining the children.

Managing children in MS required alot more skills than in a Sn. In here every one is shy of hard work,thats why slts are not prepared to work on her vocals.

zakmum This board is hugely supportive and won't be shocked by anything you say, and will probably nod in agreement to your outrage at the specific details, but please be careful about making generalisations. It might put people off supporting you.

On this very board we have SLT's indie and NHS, teachers of MS and teachers of SN and from what they say and the support they give it is quite clear that they are incredibly hard working, and huge on caring and no group more so than another. That is not to say that there are lazy people in those professions, just like any other.

A 'they're all bitches' attitude won't get you very far either here (because you won't be taken seriously) or out there when you are trying to deal with them. I quite agree some are bitches, but more often than not they have simply rewired their own brains for survival due to high pressure and poor resources and that means deluding themselves that they are making a difference when they are not. The best you can do is point out their mistakes politely, firmly and consistently and hope that at least some of them reconsider their stance.

Sorry I didn't mean to generalise.From in here I meant the people we came across in our area. off course the world is full of good and hard working people and because of some of those people we have come as far as we did, and I want to thank everyone at MN to support me when I was feeling very alone. I apologise if I offended someone that was never my intention.

It's frustrating for sure. And trying to make people understand or just do what they are paid to do is an enormous battle a lot of the time.

I didn't mean to have a go when you are clearly having a hard time and letting off steam, but it is better to talk about a silly person or department rather than 'all slts' iyswim.

I just sent off a letter in response to a response to my previous letter. It is a pretty nasty letter to a department that I know cares but has simply been allowed to get away with shoddy practice for a long time, and as a result has not the resources to do it any other way.

If you employ someone cheap and undertrained for a role as a temporary solution to a staffing issue, and no-one complains, well, that person stays in post don't they?

I'd never accuse that person of being lazy, but more 'inappropriate' for my ds'. I then have to point out 'why' she is inappropriate which isn't nice and hard to not be personal.

Do you see. Something might look like laziness to you, but often it is simply a misunderstanding of need, and the inability to make enough time to find this out. Not excusable but understandable. Still important to challenge though.

It's good advice that misunderstandings and inappropriate advice are common problems - to be fair about the PECS forum, there are some great people on it who give excellent advice about correct use of PECS (it's only the few comments from fanatics that annoy me) - but there is a failure to understand that it is not a universal aspirin for autism.

I have nothing against pecs, I am all up for anything to help my child but I strongly believe in total communication approach at this stage of her life. Pecs was the only communication tool she had for years and I think she deserve to be given a chance to talk like every other human being.
She was on phase two of pecs 5 yrs ago and in school she is still discriminating between four food items and using single picture instead of sentence strip.

I have not found PECS at all useful if I am being honest but my experience might not be everyone's so I make a conscious effort to avoid generalisations about it. DS1 can ask for many things verbally/apprropriately in mini sentences but I still get bombarded with advice that he would learn communication by handing over a card. It's easy to feel like giving up! It's all the usual things, lack of resources, lack of individual initiative within SALT departments, preference for off the shelf ready made solutions. But what you do at home is completely up to you and I don't think private SLTs should have to follow the NHS line.