Giving your child the best start in speech, language and communication
The Children’s Speech and Language therapy team at Livewell Southwest are pleased with the pro-active work they have been carrying out in identifying and supporting the early signs of speech, language, and communication difficulties within the local community.
Early language development is a strong indicator of your child’s wellbeing. Language helps your child establish and maintain relationships, communicate their feelings, manage their emotions and help them think, reason and learn.
Children who have poor speech, language and communication skills are at greater risk of poorer literacy levels and poorer life-long outcomes.
The team want to ensure that children in Plymouth have the best start in developing their speech, language and communication. They have been involved in a number of recent projects;
- Supporting new training initiatives for health visitors to identify children at risk of speech, language and communication difficulties early, and introduce an Early Language Screening Tool to support this.
- Training health visitors to offer advice, strategies and signpost to other local services and national initiatives such as ‘Tiny Happy People’ and ‘Hungry Little Minds’.
- Rolling out a programme of training for staff at local nurseries, preschools, and schools, to support these settings in creating rich language environments, and helping staff identify needs and introduce strategies to encourage positive speech, language, and communication development.
- Producing videos and information sheets to support children and young people with differing speech, language, and communication difficulties. Offering advice, strategies and ideas.
If you have any concerns about your child’s speech, language and communication, the Children’s Speech and Language Service will discuss your child’s needs, give advice and if appropriate work with you, your child and their school or nursery, to support their needs.
If you would like to get in touch with the team you can call them on 01752 434844, or click here for more information.
