Can anyone help?!Please!!

[chickensaresafehere]

Juat posted this on justaboutkeepingawakes post,but wondered if anyone else could advise??
My dd2,3.1,is completely non-verbal and at a recent com paed appt I had to stress that she was making NO progress at all & hasn't done for the past year.I asked whether she could have oral/verbal dyspraxia(after discussions with Phoenix),the paed said 'I don't know much about it'FFS,how frustrating.
Am pushing for more one to one SALT,but am doubtful,private SALT is all I have left.
No-one can tell me what is wrong with her & I am so very angry & upset,but what more can I do????HELP!!!

Hi chicken - my dd2 is 4.2 and up until she was 3.5 was non-verbal, dd2 has a number of other problems mainly with communication and sensory issues and was diagnosed with ASD last year.

We were very lucky as dd2's SALT referred her to a sn nursery straight away and dd2 gets to see SALT once a week, the staff are also trained to use PEC's and sign along, dd2 picked up PEC's within a month and eventually started to talk. There is also another little girl at dd's nursery that has a speech delay and is doing great.

Does she communicate in other ways (point, drags you over to what she wants)? Is her understanding good? (can she follow commands)?

The comm paed ruled out ASD,as she shows no signs.
We have been using makaton for over a year now,but she has only picked up one sign,which she uses constantly.She is a prolific pointer& takes you to what she wants too.
With regards to her understanding,she seems to understand most things,but we (& the comm paed) are still not sure at what level her understanding is and if she is just held back by her lack of speech.
She attends a CDC,one morning a week,but the SALT is shared with 4 other children and limited to about 20 mins,for all of them
She has had a clear MRI,but is currently awaiting a ref to a paed neuro.
I am getting to the end of my tether with it all,as she is such a happy little girl,but the lack of speech & not knowing what is wrong is upsetting us all.
Sorry,but there seems no light at the end of the tunnel

Thanks justabout,sorry to hijack yours like that

At least ASD has been ruled out.

My dd2 did not start signing until after she started to speak.

Have you tried PEC's?

I was told by dd's SALT that if there is no speech at all its hard to apply Speech therapy as there is nothing to work with (not sure if this is true), as soon as dd2 started talking the nursery upped her SALT sessions and now she is improving each week. With dd2 it was a mixture of PEC's and Music therapy that got her talking.

Does she go to nursery/playgroup? we also found once dd2 started MS nursery her speech improved, the more she was around noisy children the better her speech became.

I think the group sessions are not helping her, once she is speaking then they maybe more helpful, she needs 1:1 SALT.

She has just started at MS pre-school,a week ago,so fingers crossed with that!!
She definitely needs one to one SALT,we are hoping for that,as the comm paed said she would sort it.
Cannot find good PEC's,can you recommend any??

Hi not trying to worry you but if your dd has severe communication delay why did paed think there were no signs of asd ? Is it because her shared attention and engagement are within the normal range ?My ds is was also very good at pointing and had basic comprehension at 3 He did start to talk at around 3.6 How is she with play skills and life skills -feedind dressing etc? As I said not trying to say asd just curious about how distinctions are made

She feeds herself with a spoon/fork easily,her pretend play is good,she loves climbing on things,her fine motor skills are great,she is reasonably good at dressing/undressing.
I am not ruling out ASD,but she does not seem to have any symptoms IYSWIM.

That all sounds very positive then -can see why you are frustrated Has the paed given any indications? Since play ok can u use play to kick start communication. Have u heard of the hanen program ?

The paed looked really stumped tbh.She said an appt with a neuro paed may help?!
She is also very hypermobile & cannot walk unaided,another paed has said this hypermobility may affect her jaw,which will be causing the speech delay,but I am not so sure.
Have posted about this before & Phoenix helped alot by advising that I read up on verbal/oral dyspraxia,so not sure now if that could be the problem

We made our own pecs (ish) by laminating pictures o DS2's favourite things, ffirst we had a picture of his cup, a picture of a banana, a packet of his favourite ricecakes and a babybel wrapper. Then we added pictures of places, like the park and his favourite softplay and his bed so he could show us what he wanted. I then did some for his favourite toys too.

He is passed that stage now, but it really helped this time last year when our SALT was useless and he wouldnt point to anything,a nd couldnt explain what he wanted. It stopped him getting so frustrated.

Haven't heard of the hanen program.

We did 'More than words' which is a Hanen programme and it was fantatsic. I didnt think I would learn alot from it at the beginning but we really learned alot from it. It is based around giving children a reason to communicate.

I do think More than Words is meant or children with ASD though, in our area you have to have a diagnosis to get on the course, but the textbook is well worth a read if you cant.

Yes hanen aimed at asd but the ideas are very general ones for children with communication and language delay. I don't know why they say it is asd specific.

I agree Cyber, I would have thought the course we went on would have worked just as well for children with a speech delay for other reasons.

Thats so not true! Unless she means they only train professionals so that they can teach it to other people IYSWIM.

Sounds like the SALT we used to have - knew absolutely nothing about what was going on around her and just wanted all the children she saw to it in certain boxes. So glad we got rid!

Have you got the textbook? I wouldnt say that they were that complicated that you would need to be a SALT to read it.

I am - its on amazon for £60 and on Ebay for £101!

I know,looked it up on Amazon myself,thats heck of alot of money,maybe it would be better spent on a private SALT assessment??

You can get it for £25

But the link takes you to Amazon and there are none there at that price