Communication and Interaction (children and young people with speech, language and communication needs, and also likely to apply to children and young people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder)

WHAT IS OUR UNIVERSAL OFFER FOR COMMUNICATION AND INTERACTION?

• A parental questionnaire on speech and language skills is completed on entry to school
• Parent workshops to support children in developing their vocabulary, reading and writing
• Teachers use visual resources including: visual timetables, active listening prompts and visual supports e.g. task boards and widget symbols
• Word Aware for developing vocabulary (Parsons and Branagan)
• Talk for Writing (Pie Corbett)
• Signs around our school site are supported with visual prompts
• Makaton Friendly School (St Edmunds)
• Whole school events such as: ‘No Pens’ day, joke competitions, word trees on the playground to promote spoken language

WHAT IS OUR TARGETED OFFER FOR COMMUNICATION AND INTERACTION?

• Small group work such as social skills/lego therapy/listening skills/phonological awareness/narrative
• Teachers using suggested strategies in the classroom to help children access the curriculum e.g. chunking information
• ELKLAN trained teaching assistants

WHAT IS OUR SPECIALIST OFFER FOR COMMUNICATION AND INTERACTION?

• School employed Speech and Language Therapist in school regularly assessing, seeing and giving advice
• ELKLAN trained teaching assistant carrying out 'follow up work' as provided by Speech and Language Therapist
• Liaison with NHS speech and language therapist and facilitating carry over work
• Work closely with parents to aid carryover of work and strategies to help at home

Useful Links and Resources –

• Afasic - Helping Families to understand speech, language and communication needs (SLCN)https://www.afasic.org.uk/ 
• I CAN – A charity, which provides various programmes and services available throughout the UK, they reach out to parents, practitioners and the children with speech and language difficulties.https://www.ican.org.uk/
• The Communication Trust - a coalition of over 50 not-for-profit organisations. Working together, we support everyone who works with children and young people in England to support their speech, language and communication.https://www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk/