News
Communication coalition calls for schools to act on speech and language
29 Jan 2013
The Communication Trust, a coalition of nearly 50 voluntary organisations with expertise in speech, language and communication including the National Literacy Trust, has released research that shows many children are not being supported to develop good communication skills.
A Generation Adrift highlights that high numbers of children living in poverty have speech, language and communication needs (SLCN); that one-third of all children are not working securely in speech, language and communication by the time they reach five years old; and that 10% of all children have long term SLCN. Most worrying is the fact that there remain huge challenges for staff in accurately identifying children who are struggling with their speech, language and communication skills.
Anne Fox, Director of The Communication Trust, said;
We’re keen to raise awareness of the ongoing and changing nature of SLCN so that children’s needs are identified whatever stage of education they’re at. In order to do this we need to make the education workforce more knowledgeable about SLCN across all age groups so they can monitor children and alter the support they receive as a result. It’s about creating communication-friendly environments as a norm, so that all children have the opportunity to develop good speaking and listening skills, and providing targeted and specialist services for those who require extra support. We also need commissioners to be more aware of SLCN so they can provide specialist services where they are required.
Author of the paper, Professional Director Wendy Lee said:
Parents and teachers often know that children are struggling, but can have real difficulty identifying that the cause is a speech, language and communication need. Parents and teachers often tell us they don’t have the knowledge, skills or confidence to support children with SLCN. Young people themselves say people don’t really understand their difficulties. We want to support positive changes, so we’ve created resources and products like What Works and Talk of the Town. We want good speaking and listening skills to become intrinsic in schools, so that using and developing these skills becomes the norm in all lessons.
A Generation Adrift can be downloaded at www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk
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