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Dear Lety, Thank you for your question. With the limited information I have about your son I would like you to consider the following questions: 1) Does your son use PECS to request a range of items; with at least 3 different people; in at least 3 environments? 2) Why do you think he does not use PECS as well at home? Have you received adequate support to ensure your son has a consistent means of communication across a range of settings? When it come high tech AAC it's important for me to state that just because an individual with ASD is presented with a means of communicating more elaborate sentences; it does not mean they WILL begin to communicate using more elaborate sentences. Whilst I have made progress with high tech AAC with some children with ASD; other children with ASD are more suited to PECS for requesting & making statements about their environment. I agree with your later comments; your son needs a thorough communication assessment to look at what is, and potentially will be, an effective communication system for him. Above all I must emphasize that whichever communication system is appropriate for your son it is used consistently across all settings (including home and school). For independent assessments you can either search via Google for "ASTLIP" which is the association of independent SLTS or visit my website www.LondonSpeechTherapy.co.uk . Chris

Hello Chris - my 4 year 1 mth old son is very speech delayed. He was assessed by the ed psych as being in the bottom 1% for his age. No diagnosis from the professionals, he seems to be in that mystery bracket. He knows lots of single words and is teaching himself to read! So he has tauight himself : happy birthday, the end, bear grylls, next,,...plus all the big brands like sainsburys. The SLT gave us a pic timeline which is magic for his behaviour but now Im focused on getting Tom to say sentences. With prompting he can say "I want....please" and "thankyou" but he rarely says this independently, only when its urgent.

I have just spent 2 hours trawling the web for any books that have activities I can do with Tom to help form sentences . Do you have any recommendations? I saw the london speech therapy resources page you recommended but apart from that I feel really stuck. After a 6 week (6 x 2hr sessions) assessment from all the professionals we have an accurate picture of |Tom's ability but I was v surprised at the lack of practical suggestions I can use.

So here a re my qs

1. any book recommendations? or websites
2. Is it true that intervention before age 5 can make all the difference? I have this horrible "the window closes in 11 months time" feeling. At the moment nobody knows if he's just delayed or has innate spec needs. the rec was to send him to special school but there's no place at present. So it's all down to me

this might sound awful but how can you stop SALT work / targets feeling such a chore? Have been doing the same activities for years and tbh I am starting to hate / resent doing it. My daughter has PMLD. Her expressive communication is about the level of a 2 month old baby. Receptive higher but v hard to tell

Hello Chris

Sorry about the delay in replying. I was waiting on the latest panel meeting about Tom's admission into special school. Yesterday I heard he has not yet got a place and is still on the waiting list.

To answer your questions:

Question one - yes Tom does communicate with single words and the “I want… Please" structure that I have taught him. Lately he's also been saying phrases that I don't understand, which although frustrating , I have to feel happy about - because it means that he actually wants to communicate. So we have moved on from a situation where he just used to point to get what he wants to actually verbalising it. I would say that most of his communication that he initiates is single words. For example, if he sees a train will just say "train". We 2 word phrases, for example yesterday he opened his lunchbox and spontaneously said "empty box".

Q2 – yes we use PEC S - yes the SLT showed us this and it's been amazing for his behaviour. It was also how I taught him the "I want… please" sentence (using his ability to read to help) I have tried this with other sentences for example "I like running" to which he will come out with "I want running"

Question three I’m in Shrewsbury. We have no SLT. The one we had passed us on to the child development centre for a multidisciplinary assessments, the upshot of was that he go to a special school - that recommendation was in June. So we've been waiting with no SLT to hear about the special school, and yesterday I was told that not only has he not got a place, but they are going to do another multidisciplinary assessment.

The last one was in June. They say that his admission to the special school is dependent on the results of this assessment. This is a very difficult situation, because I don't feel he has made much progress since June (except in his behaviour) (I must admit I'm a bit obsessive about getting him to form sentences.) - therefore how can they tell us that he's not on a place, but that the outcome of this next lot of assessments will decide if he gets a place? It sounds like stalling to me . Anyway the lady I spoke to gave me her number, so I will ring her back and question more assessments. I was in a bit of a state of shock when she told me.

Thank you for the tip about my MP, I will follow that up

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer all my questions. It really helps.