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Worried about Speech therapy assesment

JoJo3

my 6 year old boy Matthew is currently being assessed for a asd, he has been seen both by a peadratrician and a ed psych with both having the view he is on the spectrum, 

we have been on the wairing list for over 12 months and I got a call yesterday saying that they have a speech therapy appointment for him next Wednesday.

I am feeling very nervous and worried about this appointment as I don't know what they will be assessing or looking for.

im worried things may be missed he is very well spoken but he has difficulty communicating, socialising and understanding things.

He doesn't socialise in school and prefers his own company he has a little sister byt prefers to keep to himself and only talks to her if he is shouting at her because she has touched something of his.

his reading is average but he doesn't seem to understand that the words he is reading are all linked together he will stop mid sentence saying it doesn't make sense and when watching a film he talks all the way threw asking what they mean, why they said that, what's going to happen next.

he also has difficulty understanding your responses to questions he asks almost doesn't accept the answer you give and will keep asking for example IF he falls over he will ask why it happened and will not accept your answer that sometimes you just fall over he Will keep asking but why did that happen.He gets very frustrated if the responses are not what he wants and will start screaming and shouting asking for a different answer.

i feel that he has difficulty expressing and reading feelings he will not tell me if he isnt feeling well, upset or hurt I have to spend time trying to find out what is wrong.

he takes things literally if I telol him I'll do something in a min he will count to 60 and say it's been a minute you said a minute or if I say get in the bath he will do fully dressed as I didn't say get undressed and then in the bath, 

he repeats himself when talking or giving answrrs like whispers to hitself almost to double check that he has said it right and will repeatidly ask the same questions but why, butt why,what's going to happen next, then what , and then what and will ask for this to be repeated through out the day.

he tends to talk at you rather then too you and will interrupt a conversation if he has something to say but if you want to talk to him if it doesnt interest him he will switch off or walk away.

he has also just recently started to copy everything I am saying to him I'm not sure if this is part of disorder or him just being cheeky

I'm worried that the speech therapist won't see all this and will miss what he is like

i am also not sure if any of this will be what there looking for any advice on this assesment will be appreciated thankyou

 Jo 

  • I agree with recombind,speech therapist will recognise it straightaway when she does an assesemnt.

  • Former Member
    Former Member

    From your description I would doubt that the speech therapy assessment will have any difficulty with identifying his problems. The paed and ed psych are not in any doubt so I expect they will be wanting to work out how much assistance he needs rather than whether he needs assistance.

    He will not like explanations such as "it just happened". This won't make sense to him and if he thinks that things just happen randomly then he might not cope with the uncertainty very well. Is he clumsy and does he stumble and trip more than most children?

    Films won't make much sense to him. I've realised, somewhat late in the day, that I really struggle with films as it is just very difficult to separate out all of the strange faces from each other when you are not familiar with them. The inability to interpret expression and emotions will also scramble the plot for him in a lot of films. He will probably like documentary programmes where a single presenter talks about a single subject for the whole programme.

  • I agree with Hope,thats what my sons speech therapist has done and what she said was he has a disordered laungage profile and he has socail communication problems,bascially shes told me everything that i knew he was which will hopefully help in a diagnose for hfa!

  • As far as I am aware, a good speech therapist will pay attention to semantics (assessing his comprehension, such as taking things literally, as you describe), and pragmatics - how he uses words to communicate. They should know that higher functioning kids with ASC often have impressive vocabularies, and phonological development is often absolutely fine.  Kids with ASC struggle with the semantics and pragmatics of speech and language, and this is what they should be assessing.